


The Lonely & The Wordless

by DragonWrites



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Ableism, Alcohol, Amnesia, Angst, Animal Death, Balance Arc spoilers, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-09-25 15:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 46,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17123699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonWrites/pseuds/DragonWrites
Summary: They make quite a pair: the middle-aged woman with the hard mouth and a death-grip on her staff, and the quiet, haunted gnome at her side.  They're both broken, but they make it work.Scenes and moments from ten years alone together, where Davenport and Lucretia re-learn how to understand each other, how to care for one another, how to be something like a family again.





	1. After

Davenport wakes up to a pounding headache and a dull roar of static.  He's laying in a bed in a room he doesn't recognize.  There’s a woman standing nearby, her face partially hidden by the hood of a brown cloak.

"You're awake, finally," she says.  There's relief in her voice.

His head feels fuzzy, and his thoughts are sluggish.  He sits up, blinking at the woman, trying to focus on her.

"I'm sure you're a bit confused, but it's all right.  Listen carefully."  Her voice is low and soothing, like she's reading a litany.  "You just arrived in Rockport.  You have an engineering job lined up with Rockport Rail.  You're a skilled mechanic who came highly recommended.  When you're ready, you can report to their head office at the railyard and ask to speak with Martin--"

What--what's going on?  He tries to think, tries to _remember_ , but there's nothing, nothing but static and it _hurts_ \--

"--landlady is a dark elf named Belinda.  Your first month's rent is already paid, your apartment keys are on the table by the door, and there's plenty of food in the kitchen."

Panic squeezes his chest.  Questions bounce through his head and static snaps back, scattering his thoughts in different directions.  He can't _think_ , he can’t--he’s trying but he can’t--w _here am I what's happening how did I get here who is this person what's rockport what does she even mean who am I who am I Davenport I'm DavenportI'mDavenportI'mDaven--_

He gasps as the thought finally clicks, slides into place.  He's Davenport.  Of course he is.  He latches onto this one thing he understands, the one thing that doesn’t hurt.  "I'm Davenport," he says.

_What's a davenport?_

The woman gives him a tight, sad smile.  "That's right," she says.  "You're--you're going to be okay."  She turns and takes a few steps towards the door.  She’s leaving him alone.

"Davenport!" he shouts.  It's the only word he can think of.  "Davenport!"  He tries to leap out of bed to go after her, to stop her from leaving him like this, but his legs tangle in the sheets and he hits the floor with a loud _thud_.

The woman rushes to his side.  "Davenport!  Are you okay?"

He thrashes his way out of the sheets, manages to get his feet under him.  His vision reels around the room and he sees a window and blue sky beyond it.  Something inside him turns towards the sky like a compass.

He hurries across the room.  The window isn’t the right height for him but there's a little stepping stool beneath it.  He climbs up and looks out.

There's a city outside his window.  It smacks him with an almost physical force.  The scale of it, the _noise_ \--!  Another wave of questions rises, sends his thoughts careening again, smacking against the static over and over like moths beating themselves desperately against the burning glass of a lamp-- _where am I what is this place what am I looking at who are these people what’s that strange noise--_

He staggers backwards, dizzy and terrified.  His foot catches air.

The woman catches him before he hits the floor.  "Davenport!"  She sets him down gently.  "What's wrong?"

He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to focus, trying to hold onto _anything_ but there’s only one thing he can grasp.  "Davenport--" he says, the word breaking in his throat.  "Davenport, davenport!"  He's shaking now, his whole body is trying to come apart at the seams.  He can't stop crying.  His sorrow is bottomless and he's going to keep crying until there's nothing left of him.  He wonders if he's dying.

"Davenport, can you hear me?”  Her voice is louder now, panicked, and it cuts through the static.  “Can you tell me what's wrong?"

He looks up at her.  His vision swims.  He tries to think of an answer, to find words that make _sense_ , but there's nothing, nothing to hold onto.  "Davenport," he says bleaky.  He shakes his head, raps his knuckles against his temple as if that could knock his thoughts into place.  "Davenport, davenport!"

The woman sits back on her heels.  She stares at him, her eyes widening, her mouth dropping open.  "Oh no," she whispers.  "Oh _shit._ "

She gets to her feet.  She's muttering something under her breath, her words so quiet he can’t hear.  She turns towards the door, hesitates, begins pacing.  He continues to cry, his breath hitching in his throat.

She kneels next to him and places one hand on his back.  "Davenport," she says, her voice soothing and quiet, "can you understand what I'm saying right now?"

He looks up at her, nods.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.  “It's going to be okay.  There's been an--an accident.  I know you're confused and scared.  But it's going to be okay."  She gives him a tight, strained smile.  There are tears in her eyes.  "I'm--I'm your guardian.  I'm going to take care of you.  I'll keep you safe, I promise."  She holds out her hand.  "My name is Lucretia."

He looks at her hand, looks at her face.  Even through the haze of terror, he feels his heart turning towards her like it had turned towards the sky.  He--he trusts her.  He doesn't know why, but he _trusts_ _Lucretia._

He puts his hand in hers.

 

#

 

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh sh--_

Lucretia’s thoughts run in panicked circles as she carries a limp Davenport back to the Starblaster.  She doesn’t understand what went wrong.  Taako, Magnus, Merle:  they were all fine.  A little disoriented at first, but able to speak, able to _function_.  They all walked into their new lives (away from her) with barely a hiccup.  They were all fine!

_What happened to Davenport?_

She bites her lip.  The shoulder of her cloak is damp; Davenport has been crying quietly, face buried in the rough brown fabric.  His arms are locked in a death-grip on her shoulders.  Even in this state, her captain is still physically stronger than he looks.

She carries him into the kitchen, carefully disentangles him and sets him in his chair at the head of the table.  He used to be a solid, commanding presence in his seat, presiding over shared meals and team meetings like the commanding officer (and, later, the friend) that he was.  But now, he just looks _lost_.

"Here," she says, handing him a stick of charcoal and opening a blank journal in front of him.  "Can you write to me?"

He wipes the tears off his face with one sleeve, then begins to scrawl a message.  His hands shake, and he holds the charcoal in his fist like a child.  She reads over his shoulder, heart in her throat.

_DAVNPoRt_

The lines are unsteady, the angles broken.

She pinches the bridge of her nose.  She can salvage this.  She can _fix_ this.  "Sit here," she says, "I'll be right back."

"Davenport?" he asks, staring at her.  Confused. _Afraid._

Her stomach twists.  She leaves the room quickly.  She can’t break down in front of him.  He needs her help.

It doesn't take too long to find what she needs.  Anything that screams _Captain Davenport_ to her, she scoops up and carries back to him, laying them out on the table.  Star charts. Topographic maps.  His wand.  A book of illusion spells he'd taken from the Arcaneum.  Ship schematics showing an exploded view of the bond engine.  The deck of tarot cards he used for Yooker.  Sheet music and, hell, even that karaoke machine Taako had picked up on that one technologically-advanced and party-centric plane.

Anything she thinks he might understand.  Anything that might help him remember some part of himself.

He stares blankly at the pile.  He picks up the deck of cards with shaking hands and turns a few of them over, brow furrowed.  He sets them down again.  He traces a finger over the embossed image on the cover of the spellbook, but it doesn't hold his attention.  He takes one look at the schematics and his eyes glaze over; he looks away, rubbing his forehead as if the sight of it pains him.

He doesn't understand the sheet music.  She sets up the karaoke machine anyway.  "Can you sing, Davenport?" she asks.  

He squints at the microphone.  A spark of recognition, maybe?  She hands it to him.   _Please,_ she thinks, a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening.

He takes a deep breath.  "Davenport davenport davenport!"  He sings his name loudly, tunelessly.  The mic shrieks feedback and he drops it, startled.

She hastily shuts off the machine.  "It's okay, it's okay," she says, trying to keep her voice low and even.  He rubs at his ears, takes a few hitching breaths as if he might start crying again.  She grabs the next item in the pile.

His eyes light up as she unrolls the star chart, and for a moment she feels a flare of hope.  He leans forward in his chair and sets a hand on the map.  With his other hand he taps several different stars, points of white on the field of dark blue.

(It was one of his finest works.  They'd been on a plane with very little civilization.  The night sky had been so clear, so awash in stars and celestial phenomena, that Davenport had become nocturnal for the cycle, spending his nights either stargazing on the deck or working on this map over the dining room table.  Lucretia had joined him on so many nights, painting her landscapes or transcribing notes.  It had been so peaceful, the two of them together, working in companionable silence.  Lost in their tasks but not alone.)

Davenport stares at the map serenely, tapping out different stars.  He mutters his name under his breath a few times.

After a few minutes of this, the hope begins to shrivel in her chest.  She looks at the way his blank eyes rove across the field of stars, not really absorbing it, just…losing himself in the pattern.

He thinks it's pretty.  But that’s all.

She leans back in her chair, dread settling in her gut.  This isn't her captain.  Her captain is gone.  She has destroyed him.

She takes the map away too quickly.  One corner rips.  Her heart seizes.  She rolls it up, promising herself she'll use a mending spell later, but right now her carefully-laid plans are crumbling around her, and she needs to do something.  But she doesn't know what to _do_.

The movement knocks Davenport out of himself, pulls his attention back on her.  "Davenport?" he asks.

It's too much.  She starts to cry.

Then he starts to cry.

She falls into her chair, all the strength flowing out of her knees.  She buries her face in her hands as the sorrow rolls over her and squeezes the breath from her lungs.  What has she done?  _What has she done?_

She doesn't know how much time passes, the two of them a crying mess at the dining room table.  Unable to comfort each other, lost in their sorrow and utterly alone.

Eventually her breathing steadies.  She forces herself to focus.  She can do this.  She needs to help him, and to do that, she needs to understand what _happened._

She gets to her feet.  She can recheck her notes from the redaction, sort through her journals to figure out if she'd somehow erased something crucial.  But her eye catches the pile of objects spread out on the table and she realizes she doesn't need her notes.  She's known this man for over a hundred years.  She knows how to read his moods by the subtle movement of his ears and the twitch at the very tip of his tail.  She knows his hair care routine, knows how he takes his tea and prefers his wines, she knows what personal effects to take off his corpse and bring back to the ship for safekeeping.  She knows what he’s afraid of, knows that he wears his uniform like armor, and that he likes to be hugged but never wants to ask for it.  She knows how he had exactly zero casual clothes in his closet until the beach cycle, and Taako transmuted half his wardrobe in response.

And there it is.  It hits her all at once, what happened.  She's a _biographer_ , damn it.  She should have seen the signs.  She knows him _so well._

The star charts and maps.  The illusion magic.  The music.  Everything he'd done, everything on the table was inextricably linked, in Davenport's mind, with the Mission.

Davenport had dedicated himself completely to it.  No matter what joy he found, no matter what fun he allowed himself to have, he was first and foremost the Captain.  He couldn't let that go, even for a moment.  It crouched in the back of his thoughts like the worst kind of internal editor, insisting that everything he did had to be worth it, had to contribute valuable progress to the Mission.  Even if he wanted it for himself, he had to frame it in terms of the Mission or the Captain part of him wouldn't allow it.

It was in the way he so carefully spent his time and so reluctantly tore himself away from his work.  It was in the way he never talked much about their lost home plane or imagined a future beyond the Hunger's defeat.  It was in the way he always hesitated before allowing himself to laugh with them.  It was in the way he was the last person on the ship to start referring to the rest of the crew as friends, as family.   

He'd let the Mission define him, let it _consume_ him, sticky tendrils wrapping around and absorbing him until he was nothing but the Mission's avatar, the one who bore it all on his back, his very sense of self a vast black star chart glittering with the light of every plane they'd saved or lost.  The Mission was his sole and central load-bearing support column.  And she'd torn it out.  There was no other part of him strong enough to hold up the weight of _Davenport_ , and so the whole thing had come crashing down.

He's nothing but wreckage now.  Wreckage, and a name.

She stares at the pile of her captain's effects.  Another wave of sorrow threatens to overwhelm her—not just for what she'd done, but for Davenport, and the fact that he'd felt the need to carry that weight in the first place, to sacrifice his whole _identity_ to their cause.  They'd all made terrible sacrifices to survive, but he didn’t need to burn his entire life on the altar of the Mission.  He deserved to be happy.

She'd wanted to make him happy.

"Oh, Davenport," she breathes, her throat squeezing over the words.  "Isn't there anything you did just because you wanted to?  Isn't there anything you kept back just for yourself?"

Davenport stares at the pile, his eyes distant and mournful.

She brushes a fresh wave of tears from her eyes.  "Damn it," she says, "couldn't you have been selfish, just once?"

His mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out.  Slowly, his gaze focuses on her.  He leans over the table and places a hand on her arm.

 

#

 

Davenport wakes up to a world shrieking with static.  He burrows deeper beneath his quilt and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that the hiss and crackle in his own head will die down.  But it doesn't. 

 

#

Here is what she learns:  he does not know how to talk, how to dress, or how to brush his hair.  He can grip a spoon in his fist, but his hands shake so much that he can’t keep food on it.  He sleeps restlessly, moaning and muttering.  Nightmares, she assumes.  Or his brain in overtime, trying to rewrite itself around the vast, gaping holes in his mind.

When he's awake, he's curled up on the common room couch under a pile of blankets, muttering his name over and over, looking wide-eyed at everything around him with a vague expression of confused terror.  The only thing that doesn’t seem to terrify him to look at is the large windows overlooking the secluded valley where she’s parked the ship, so she moves the couch so he can look at it all day.

If she has to leave the common room, she takes him by the hand and leads him along with her.  He follows, unsteady on his feet but as unwilling to be alone as she is to leave him alone.  She feeds him, keeps him clean, and helps him button up his waistcoat.  She can't bring herself to brush his hair in a way that looks like the old him, so she styles it differently.  He doesn't seem to care.  He just sits on the little bathroom stool, eyes closed, calm and compliant as she brushes his hair.

He’s been many things in the century she’s known him, but compliant isn’t one of them.  

 

#

 

Davenport wakes up to a world shrieking with static.  His eyes rove until they latch onto the landscape outside the windows.  He tries to focus on that.  He can't focus on anything else.

 

#

 

It's easier to live with what she's done if she thinks of him like an acorn.

She hits on the simile about a week after—well, "after."  It's better than thinking of him as a shell, or as a collapsed building, or as a book with all its pages torn out.  She tries not to think of him as someone broken or hollowed out, but as someone who’s merely quiescent.  Waiting for the right time.  It's easier to look at him if she imagines her captain tucked inside the back of his mind, sleeping peacefully like someone in a fairy tale.  Ready to be woken, a little confused but unharmed, after the monster has been beaten and the thorns torn away. 

It won't be very long, she thinks.  Six months, a year at most.

She hopes the damage isn't irreparable.

She slips up a few days later, affectionately calls him "my little acorn" as she brushes his hair.  Like he's her godsdamned child.

He looks at her in horror.  "Davenport!" he cries, his voice breaking.  He slaps his chest for emphasis.  His eyes are huge, desperate, like he's staring down a tunnel at an oncoming train.  "Davenport, Davenport!  I'm DAVENPORT!"

She doesn't make that mistake again.

Her family had so many nicknames for their captain, the built-up affection of a hundred years.  But those days are over.  'Davenport' is all he has now, and he clings to it like a life raft in a stormy sea.  She can’t let him drown.

    

#

 

The sooner she retrieves the relics, the better.  While he sleeps, she compiles the rumors she's gathered.  Maps of Faerun blossom with notes and markings; her hands are covered with ink.

It's almost too easy to retrieve her staff, once she pinpoints its latest owner.  A wealthy landlord had suddenly been stricken by paranoia, and had gathered up most of his wealth and retreated to a cave.  Since then, nobody has been able to get past the impenetrable barrier that now surrounds the place.  She parks the Starblaster nearby and waits.

(Before taking off, she had tried to lead Davenport towards the helm.  Knowing he probably wouldn’t remember how to fly, thinking it might bring him comfort anyway.  He took a few tentative steps towards it, drawn to it like a magnet.  But then he paused, shaking his head, wincing as if he were fighting off a migraine.  The more he looked at it, the more in pain he seemed to be.  So she led him away, speaking soft reassurances.  She waited until he was asleep before she slipped back to the helm, alone.)

The ship is silent.  The shield is a blank wall.  She waits.

The landlord had taken his wealth with him, but not food.  The shield finally winks out.  She strides inside and barely looks at his half-starved corpse as she pries the staff from his grip.  She doesn't cry.

The staff tries to force its voice inside her.  She tells it to shut up.  She's in charge now.  The staff falls silent, and accepts the arrangement.

Later, she draws the corpse in her journal, and cries till the ink blurs on the page.  Davenport sits on the couch nearby, staring at nothing.

 

#

 

Davenport wakes up to a world shrieking with static…

#

 

It's two weeks after and she's heading straight to Fisher's tank.  She can't do this anymore, she just _can't_.

It's Davenport's worst day so far.  He'd had a particularly restless night, had woken up screaming and shaking, and it had all been downhill from there.  He paced the common room in a blind panic for half the morning, shaking his head and rubbing his ears, like he was hearing some noise that he couldn’t shut out.  She'd tried to calm him down, tried to hold him, but he'd pushed her away with an incoherent screech, grabbed a stool, and flung it at the window with such force that it left a spiderweb of cracks in the thick glass.  

She'd cast Sleep on him and bolted down the corridor to her office, to Fisher.

Her hand shakes as she holds the flask over the water.  Fisher keens, a note that she recognizes as their sound of distress.  Fisher must have sensed the tension on the ship lately, must be wondering where everyone is.

She leans her forehead against the cool glass.  She can fix this so easily.  She can bring her captain back and he can take charge again.

There’s a hole in the wall in Davenport’s berth, a spot where he’d punched the paneling in a sudden outburst of pained fury, not long after another report of the Oculus came to him.  He’d thought nobody had been in earshot.  But she’d heard it, a muffled shout from his room and the sharp crack of wood.  He’d emerged a moment later, perfectly composed, his anger squeezed back down inside him.  But she could see the distance in his eyes, the tense lines around his mouth.  She’d found the hole later, hastily hidden behind a pinned-up map.

She’d thought of that hole so many times, as she’d written her redaction.  

And what if she brings him back now?  He'd undo all her work and they'd be back to square one.  Only now, he’d have even more anger to carry.  The Relic Wars might be over but the cracks would keep forming, in obvious and hidden places.  Everything would just be a different sort of broken.

She’d have torn apart her family for nothing.  

She takes a deep breath.  "I'm sorry, Fisher," she says.  "I miss them too."

She can do this.  She'd survived a year alone.  She can do this, too, save this world and save her friends and find a way to help Davenport.  He doesn't deserve to be crushed by the weight of this mission again.

Setting the flask down, she heads out of the room and into the captain's berth.  There has to be something here that she overlooked, something that might bring him comfort or spark some connection in his brain.

“...Davenport?” he calls, from down the hallway.  “Davenpooort…?”  His voice is strained, anxious.

“Davenport?”  She leans out into the hallway, and her brow furrows in confusion.  Davenport is stumbling towards her, one arm waving in front of him, his eyes narrowed and his ears twitching frantically.  As if he can’t quite see what’s in front of him and is trying to navigate by feel and sound.  He bangs his elbow against a wall and tries to correct, holding one hand against the wall as he moves towards her voice.

“Davenport?” she asks.  “I’m right here.  Can you...see me?”

He stops next to her and looks up at her face.  And then his gaze shifts to the room behind her.  He moans loudly, squeezing his eyes shut.  His knees give out and he collapses in the doorway.  She catches him before his head can hit the doorframe.

The problem hits her when she's halfway back to the common room, Davenport limp in her arms.  The whole damn ship is the problem.  He can’t grasp _any_ of it.  She’s taken him to the one place on Faerun where he can never recover, because the redaction is telling him it doesn't exist.  He’d taken one look at his own room and his brain had just shut down.

No wonder he’d been staring out the windows.  

She squeezes her eyes shut against tears.  “I’m so sorry, Davenport,” she says, as she sets him gently on the couch.  “I’ll get you out of here.”

Well, they'd been living on this plane for two years now.  They were long overdue for an actual home.

 

#

 

Davenport wakes up to the sound of a soothing hum.  It cuts through the static and fills him with warmth, like a hand laid gently on his shoulder.  Like safety, like _belonging._

He sits up, turned towards the noise.  The lady comes by and she says something to him.  He tries to answer, but the static is still too thick for words.  All that comes out is a soft, strangled "Dav…?"

She takes him by the hand, and he follows.

Out beyond the static is a spinning ring of white light.  He instantly focuses on it.  Static crackles at its edges—he can't think what it is or why it's there—but the ring itself comforts him in a way he can't name.  He sits down and closes his eyes, and begins to hum in tune with it.

He's distantly aware of the static around him lifting him into the sky.  Of a cool breeze mussing his hair.  But right now, he feels…okay.

The lady comes back and sits beside him.  He leans against her and sighs in contentment.  Gently, she puts an arm around his shoulder.

           

#

   

Here is what she takes from the Starblaster:

           

-Food and toiletries

-Clothes for her and Davenport (it stings to leave the red robes behind, but she swallows her sentiment, for his sake)

-Merle's three favorite houseplants, which he'd spent years cultivating

-The med kit, including a stash of healing potions

-Some blank journals and quills

-All of her maps tracking the relics, and all of Barry’s maps tracking Lup

-One of Taako's cookbooks, the one with all of the crew's favorite comfort foods

-A small star chart, nothing fancy

-The star-patterned quilt that Davenport has been using as his new armor

-Fisher and their tank

-The duck that Magnus had carved for her

           

Fisher and the tank are the most challenging.  But Fisher doesn't need to be in water constantly, so she empties the tank.  It's much lighter that way.

She wonders if she should have kept some of the ichor, just in case something happens to Fisher along the way to their new home in Neverwinter.  But as the dark, starry liquid pools out on the ground and soaks away, all she can think is, _oh well, too late now._

She tucks the ship into a cave and protects it behind layers of illusion and a shield from the Bulwark Staff.  Davenport watches her cast the spells from where he sits in the wagon.  She hands him her wand.  Illusions come naturally to gnomes, and she wonders if he can at least pull off a basic cantrip.  But he just turns the wand over in his hands, chewing his lip, and then hands it back to her.

She sighs and gets into the wagon beside him.  “It’s okay,” she tells him.  She tells herself.

Davenport seems happy to be outside, at first.  He can see everything now.  He watches the clouds in the sky and the colorful splashes of wildflowers on the side of the road.  Once, he grabs Lucretia’s sleeve and points out a deer peeking out from a stand of trees. 

But by lunchtime, his face is pressed into her side and he’s mumbling his name over and over in a thin, tight voice.  As if the ever-changing landscape is too much for him to process.  By mid-afternoon, he’s fallen into a strained and exhausted sleep in the back of the wagon, tucked under his quilt.  Fisher hovers near the sleeping gnome for the rest of the trip, almost protectively.  Davenport doesn't ever seem to see them.  Probably for the best.

Her new landlord is a pleasant enough half-elf.  He has some workers on hand to carry her boxes up to the furnished apartment she's renting.  He doesn't ask questions about the glassy-eyed adult gnome that she carries in with her.  His eyes pass over Fisher like brookwater around a rock.

The apartment is a medium-sized one-bedroom affair, with a small office that can fit Fisher’s tank, and a generous common area that's both living room and dining room/kitchen.  The two areas are divided by a big couch with an ugly floral print.  She's already ordered a small, gnome-sized bed to go beside the human-sized one in the single bedroom.  It will be a little cramped, but she hopes the proximity will help both of them.

"Well," she says to Davenport, mustering up as much cheer as she can, "welcome home."

He grunts against her shoulder.  "Davenport," he mumbles.

She lays him down on the couch and lets him sleep.

 

#

           

Davenport wakes up to a retreating headache and the soft sizzle of cooking.  He's laying on a couch in a room he doesn't recognize.  He blinks, rubs at his eyes with the heel of one hand.

He doesn't know where he is or how he got here.  But his head feels . . . clearer, somehow.  Better than it's been.  The static is a soft hiss in the back of his head.  He can deal with that.

He's Davenport.  He knows that.  He was with the lady, and they'd been somewhere—somewhere he couldn't see clearly.  He doesn't know how long they were there, only that it was dizzying and painful, the static hemming him in and squeezing his chest till he thought he couldn't breathe.

He remembers calm moments in the daze.  A green valley.  A field of dark blue paper sprinkled with white dots like the sky.  The kind lady brushing his hair.  A bright, humming circle that seemed to fit perfectly in a hole in his heart.

His body is limp with exhaustion and the relief that comes after a long time in pain.  He lays on the couch for a while, working up the energy to move again.  Finally he manages to roll onto his side.  The couch smells musty.

"Davenport?" he calls.  The lady can't be far.  She wouldn't leave him alone.

"Davenport?" comes her call, gentle and pleasant like the tolling of a bell through fog.  "Are you awake?"  The sound is coming from the same direction as the sizzling.

He sits up and peers over the back of the couch.  The lady stands over a big iron stove next to a kitchen counter on the other side of the room.  She's stirring something in a pan.  There's a small wooden table set with two bowls.

He doesn't know what she's cooking but it smells delicious.

"Davenport?" he asks.

"Do you need something?"

He thinks about this, and shrugs.  "Davenport."  He slides off the couch and walks over to her side.  He's a little unsteady, but he can keep his feet under him.  One step, then another, then another.  That's good.  He can do this.

The lady looks down into the pan.  "You hungry?  You've hardly eaten anything all day."

Now that she mentions it, yes.  He is hungry.  He hasn't felt hungry in a while, he's just felt nauseous.  But now, he actually wants to eat.  Especially whatever is cooking in that pan.  He points at it.  "Davenport!"

She smiles.  "Yup, that's right.  It's your favo—"  She stops, clears her throat.  "It's—it's something I think you'll really like."  She pokes the contents of the pan with a fork, and lifts it off the heat.  He sits in the raised, gnome-sized chair and watches her scoop the food into the two bowls.  It's a thick mix of rice, vegetables, and shrimp in some sort of creamy sauce, and the steam that rises up to his face smells wonderful.  He grips the spoon, and his hands are still a little shaky but he manages to get some of the food onto it before she can do it for him.

She raises both eyebrows, but she doesn't reach over to take the spoon from him.  "Careful, it's very hot.  You'll wanna blow on it."

He does so, and when it's cooler he takes a bite.

It's perfect.  Like someone knew what all his favorite flavors would be and made a dish that was exactly that.  He wonders if the lady is magical like that, knowing what he'd like when even he doesn't know.

A squeak of pleasure leaks out of his throat.

The lady smiles.  "I knew you'd like it."

He digs into the dish, pausing only long enough to blow on each spoonful before wolfing it down.  He isn't even sure what he's feeling right now, it's just a mix of so many good things.  He's happy and he's safe and he's full and he's warm, and the lady is with him and he's sure it's all going to be okay now.

He looks up to see the lady eating quietly from her own dish.  He wishes he knew her name.  Did she tell him her name?  He can't remember.  Everything's been so foggy.

She catches his gaze.  He pats his chest.  "Davenport," he says, then extends a hand towards her.

She pauses.  "Lucretia," she says.

Lucretia.  It's a pretty name.  He opens his mouth and tries to shape it.   _Lucretia._ Not like Davenport at all.  He concentrates, forces his mouth and tongue around the sound of it.  "L-lu...Lu..."           

She's staring at him, mouth open.

Lu _creesha._  He can get it, he almost has it in his grasp.  "Lu—Luc-c…"

The word slips away from him.  He gasps, shakes his head.

There are tears on her cheeks, but she's smiling.  She reaches across the table and takes his hand.  "It's okay, my name's a bit of a mouthful.  But you did so, so well!  I'm proud of you, Davenport."

He looks up at her.  For the first time since they'd met, he smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! My long-promised Decade Fic about Davenport and Lucretia. This is actually the first TAZ fic I ever wrote, well before I even joined AO3, but it was sidelined by other projects and I've been putting in some extra editing time trying to get it to a place where I was happy with it. I hope you enjoy it! And I hope, especially, that I do Wordless!Davenport justice. He's a hard character to get right in a way that's respectful and gives him the depth and agency he deserves. But I wanted to give the Decade an in-depth look in terms of how he and Lucretia grow and change and learn to understand each other, and how they become the people that we see at the beginning of Balance.
> 
> Thanks to all my fellow writers and friends who've offered advice and help along the way. You're all great, and words can't express my appreciation for you :)


	2. Help

Davenport waits on the couch for a lady whose name he's forgotten.  He's been waiting for a long time—waiting for days—but the lady still hasn't returned.

He whittles away his time doing small things, just to distract himself from his growing anxiety and the ever-present static lurking at the back of his head.  He draws pictures in the journal the lady had left for him.  He waters the plants and waters them again, and when they start to droop, he adds even more water hoping that will fix them (it doesn't).  He tosses a bunch of blankets and pillows around the living room so he can carefully pick them up and put them away again.

Twice a day, a young halfling woman opens the door to check on him and to bring him some food.  She tries a couple of times to speak to him--or, really, to speak _at_ him--but he doesn't know who this person is, so he just stares at her from across the room.  So she stops talking, and her visits become briefer.

Three days after the lady left, he woke up and found he'd forgotten her name again.  He cried for a long time, but the name didn't come back.

His own name stays.  It's the only thing that stays.  Sometimes he repeats it to himself, over and over, just to reassure himself that at least he has one thing he's sure of.

And now he's in the living room, watching the front door, aimlessly worrying the hem of his quilt.  The lady had promised she'd come back, but it's taking so _long_ and the longer she's away, the more he worries that she's not coming back at all.  It's getting harder to distract himself or focus or hold anything in his head.  The fog feels thicker all the time, and sometimes he'll snap awake suddenly to find he's been staring at the wall for hours and his tail is cramping and his foot's asleep.

The static crouches just behind his shoulder. 

There—!  The sound of distant, uneven footsteps coming down the hall.  The hollow tap of a familiar staff.  His heart leaps like a rabbit in his ribs.  He jumps to his feet and scrambles to the door.  Please, please let it be her!  He doesn't want to be alone anymore!

 The door opens, and the lady stumbles inside.  She collapses on the floor, her white staff rolling over the floorboards.

Davenport stops, stares.  He can't process—he can't—he— _what?_

It's her.  He knows it's her.  But she's so much older now.  Her pale hair is now completely white, and her face is lined with new wrinkles.  She's covered in blood, the blood is leaking on the floor—

She looks up at him.  "Davenport," she sobs, her voice high and broken and thick with tears, "I'm so sorry.  I couldn't do it!"  She pushes herself up so she's sitting against the door, and wipes at her eyes with one corner of her cloak.  The edge of the cloak is singed black.  "I failed, Davenport.  I failed you, I failed everybody."  Her voice breaks, and she begins to cry.

It's the sadness in her voice that gets him moving again.  He doesn't understand what's happening, he doesn't understand _anything_ , but he knows he doesn't want to see the lady suffer. 

He crouches next to her and puts a hand very carefully on her shoulder, avoiding the ugly, bloody slash on her sleeve.  "Davenport," he says.

She sniffs, shaking her head.  She runs one hand through her white hair.  "I'm sorry, Davenport," she repeats.  She leans heavily on her good arm, and tries to push herself to her feet.  But she cries out and collapses again, gasping in pain as she hits the floor.

"Davenport!" he cries.  This won't do.  The lady is going to hurt herself.  He puts a hand on her knee, shaking his head.  "Davenport!" 

She ignores him, her pained gaze focused on a point behind him.  Pushing his hand aside, she tries again to rise.  This time she's almost to her feet when one knee buckles.

Davenport grabs her around the waist, trying to break her fall.  But she's so much bigger than him, and most of her is dead weight, and they both fall in an awkward, partially-controlled tumble.  His knee hits the floor hard.  Pain makes his vision go briefly fuzzy, and the static growls.

"Davenport!" he says, more vehemently.  Chiding both the lady and the static. 

The lady winces, sucking in her breath through gritted teeth.  Another pained groan escapes her.

He gets to his feet.  "Davenport," he says again, gripping her shoulder to hold her in place.  _Don't get up, don't get up, you're in pain and I don't want you hurting any more, please._   "Davenport, Davenport!"  He points at the floor, smacking his chest for emphasis.

"I don't know what you're saying!" she snaps. 

Her anger is like lightning through his body.  It knocks the breath out of him, and he stumbles back, lands on the floor again.  He doesn't know what to do.

But her anger is already gone.  She falls in on herself, hiding her face in her hands.  "Davenport, I can't—I can't understand you.  I'm sorry."

He bites his lip.  He wants to say things to her, he _wants_ to—but he can't find the words in his head.  He's just a name drifting through a small, foggy place, and if he drifts too far the static snaps at him and sends him reeling back.

Fog and static.  That's all he is.  And sometimes the fog isn't so bad but the static is always there, like a shifting, hissing, impenetrable wall made half of stone and half of lightning.

Impulsively, he pushes against it, trying to _think_ what to do now.  Trying to remember what he's done before, when someone was hurt and he—

Static snaps back at him.  It's an awful, sickening feeling, his thoughts slipping sideways out of his grip while the world spins.  But it's something he's growing oddly accustomed to.  He closes his eyes, tries to steady his breathing. 

He pushes again, following his thoughts down, digging into the static.  It's like trying to work his fingers into the cracks of a wall.  There have to be cracks, there has to be a way past.  He grits his teeth, tries to ignore the screaming resistance in the back of his head.  Whenever someone was hurt, he—he would call for—he would get them back to—to the—place where the—

The static spikes.  His thoughts scatter, and he sags against the apartment wall, breathless and dizzy.  He can't think.  He doesn't know how long he sits there, not thinking, just sitting in the fog.  The static circles the edges of his awareness like a massive snake, squeezing him down to nothing.

The sound of the lady crying slowly pulls him back.  He blinks, rubs his temples.  He's Davenport.  He's in the apartment with the lady. 

He takes a deep breath, and focuses on her.  Her name is--is _Lucretia_.  Lucretia is sad, and badly hurt.  She needs…she needs…

The fog clears a little.  Something brushes against his awareness.  A single word.  Slowly, he reaches for it.  Not too fast.  Careful, careful, before the static can notice.  He picks up the word, turns it over in his head.  Opens his mouth.

"Davenport…"  He pushes the new word out, shaky and slow.  "H-help."

Lucretia looks up.  "Davenport?  You…you just..."

"Davenport _help_."  He repeats the words, enunciating them as clearly as he can.  The new word stays.  It feels strange in his mouth, but it _stays_.

She looks straight at him, like she's noticing him clearly for the first time.  She opens her mouth, hesitates on the verge of speaking.  Like she has to think of her words, too.  Finally she says, "The med kit.  Could you get it for me, please?  It's…a white box with a green circle on it, and it should be in the bathroom, in the lower cabinet next to the jade plant."

He knows where that is!  He repeats "Davenport help!" one last time before scurrying off to find what she needs.

The jade plant is looking worse than ever, its leaves drooping and rotting, but he can't worry about that now.  He needs to focus.  Lucretia needs his help.  The white box with the green circle is easy to find, right where she said it would be.  He carries it back to her, and tries to pry the latches open.  It takes him a few tries to figure out how they work, and Lucretia tries to take it from him to do it herself.  But he holds up a finger and repeats "Davenport help!"  And he gives the latches another tug and they pop open.

He looks up and grins at her.

She smiles weakly.  Her dark skin looks ashen now.  But she reaches in and pulls out a small vial of glowing green liquid and drinks it down, and her wounds begin to heal. 

She lowers the bottle with a gasp.  "Thank you, Davenport," she says.  "You did…very well."

He beams. 

Of course, she's still banged up.  He runs to the bathroom and comes back with a clean washcloth ringing with warm water, and very carefully dabs the dirt and caked blood from her face.  "Davenport help!" he says.  She is still so much older (part of him had wondered if he could wipe the wrinkles off her face and she'd be her normal young self underneath), but at least she's cleaner now and no longer looks quite so gray.  That eases his heart, a little.

What else can he do for her? 

Well, what does the lady--what does _Lucretia_ do for him?  She makes sure he has food and water—yes, she needs to eat! 

He goes to the kitchen area, and finds a couple of slices of bread.  He digs through the cooling crate, and begins pulling out jars of things that he's sometimes seen Lucretia slather bread with.  He's never done this on his own.  Much of the stuff ends up splattering on the wall and the counter as he works, and he nearly drops one of the jars on the floor.  (Sometimes his hands still shake, but he's getting better with that.)  But he gets enough of the slathering stuff on the bread that he's satisfied.  He puts it on a tray with a glass of water, and carries it to Lucretia.

"Davenport help!" he says, holding out the tray with pride.

She wakes up from a doze and stares at him again.  "You made that…for me?"

"Davenport help!" he repeats.  The new word is still so clear in his mind.  If he keeps this up, if he keeps adding more and more words, then maybe one day…

"Thank you, Davenport," she says.  She picks up the sandwich and bites into it.  He leans in, watching her reaction closely.

Her face contorts.  She chews very slowly.  He doesn't quite know what that means. 

She swallows.  "This is…um.  Davenport, what did you put on this sandwich?"

Hmm.  He doesn't have the words for those things.  "Davenport," he says, ticking them off on his fingers.  "Davenport, Daven-davenport, ah…Davenport!"  The light-brown creamy stuff, the purple jelly, the red stuff in the squeeze bottle, some cheese slices.  Those sour, crunchy green vegetable slices that come from a jar of green liquid.     

Lucretia drinks almost the entire glass of water in one gulp.  "Ah…thank you, Davenport.  That was…."  She gives him a weak smile.  "That was very sweet of you."

He smiles. 

"I think I'm ready to try standing again."  She reaches for her white staff, but it had rolled well out of reach of her fingers when she dropped it.

"Davenport help!" he says, bounding over to retrieve it for her.

"Davenport, no!"  Lucretia tries to get up again.  "Don't touch it, it's—"

It's already in his hands.  A voice is speaking to him, so soft and distant it sounds like it's coming from the far side of the fog in his head, but also from everywhere in his head at once.  It promises him safety.  It promises him protection, and a life free of pain.

He doesn't like it.  He doesn't like having another weird sound in his head that he doesn't understand.

And besides, Lucretia already keeps him safe.  As long as she's here, he'll be fine.  "Davenport," he says very firmly.

The staff falls silent.  He hands it back to the lady.  "Davenport help!"

She holds the staff in her lap, but doesn't move right away to get up.  She only looks at him, and at the staff, and at him again, as if trying to figure something out.     

He knows that feeling.

 

#

 

He stays with her the rest of the evening, holding her hand and gently guiding her to where she needs to be, just as she's done for him many times.  To the spare storage room where he finds more potions and bandages ("Davenport help!"), to the bathroom where he draws a warm bath ("Davenport help!"), to the bedroom where he pulls out a fresh nightgown for her ("Davenport help!").  And she lets him take care of her, and he's still worried about her but he is also happy to help her.

He wants to help.  Since the day they'd met, when he'd been sick and confused and the static was so loud it made him cry, she had done so much for him.  She fed and bathed and clothed him, and she showed him how to do those things for himself.  She kept him company, reading to him or just talking.  On bad days, she sang softly to him, stroking his hair till he fell asleep.  She soothed him when he woke, crying and shaking, from nightmares he could never remember or understand.  She took such good care of him, every day. 

He wants to do the same for her.  He wants her to be safe and happy.

So he tucks her into bed and pulls the blanket up to her shoulders.  "Davenport—"

The new word is gone.  It slips through his fingers and back into the static and it's gone.  He casts about for it but he can't remember what it was, he can't—he—he—

"Davenport…" he says bleakly.  "Davenport."

He feels a hitching in his chest, a soft sorrowful hiccup. 

He thought he'd tamed it.  He thought it would _stay_.  He'd been so proud.

Lucretia puts a hand on his shoulder.  "It's okay, Davenport," she says softly.  "You did so well today.  You were such a great help to me.  Thank you."

He looks up into her face.  She's smiling at him.  He smiles back.

"You know, Davenport," she said, and it's her turn to worry the hem of her blanket, "I think I've been going about this whole thing all wrong.  I—I can't do this alone anymore.  I need help.  If I hadn't—"  She breaks off, looks away for a moment.  A few hitching breaths.  "Gods, I need help.  This is…it's just so much harder than I expected."

"Davenport!"  He can help.  He wants to help.  Whatever Lucretia needs, he can try to do it for her.  He isn't very good at a lot of things, he's never helped anybody before today, but he can try.

She shakes her head.  She's not looking at him.  "I'll need more people.  A lot more.  A network of people, fighters and informants and a few well-placed people in positions of authority.  But I think…I think it just might work."

He can help, too.  He's _right here_.

She gives his shoulder another squeeze.   "It's late.  Why don't we get some sleep?  I think we've both earned it."

Without thinking, he climbs up onto her bed and tucks himself in at her side.  He doesn't know much, but he knows that when he's scared he doesn't want to be alone.  She shouldn't have to be alone, either.  He lays his head down on the blanket, closes his eyes and lets himself drift off into the fog.

Another soft laugh from Lucretia.  The sound makes him feel warm and safe.  "Not what I originally thought, but yes," she says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.  "Good night, Davenport."

He smiles.  He only has the one word now, and Lucretia.  But that's enough.


	3. Starblaster Interlude I - Armor

"No.  No.  This is unacceptable.  Absolutely unacceptable." 

Taako is standing in Captain Davenport's berth, arms akimbo, glaring at the contents of his closet.  Davenport stands in the doorway, giving the elf his best irritated glare.

"Be that as it may," says Davenport, trying to keep his voice firm but even, "I did not give you permission to go through my closet."

"Well it's happening now!  You gave us the year off, homie, so we're off the clock and you're just another dude on the beach."

Davenport can feel his face growing hot.  "It doesn't work like that!  I'm still the captain, vacation or not."

Taako reaches unrepentantly into a pile of folded red uniform jackets and tosses them aside.  "You're also a person who, get this, has managed to go twenty full cycles without acquiring a SINGLE piece of casual clothing?"

Davenport is already scrambling to pick up his tossed-aside uniforms before they can wrinkle.  "It was never necessary," he says.  It's getting harder and harder to keep his voice even.  "Besides, I have a jumpsuit if I need to get dirty."

"You mean this thing?"  Taako holds up a red IPRE jumpsuit, dangling it in mid-air.  After twenty cycles, it's in sorry shape, covered in spots of engine grease and worn at the cuffs and ankle hems.  Even Davenport has to admit he could probably use a new one. 

"I have sweats, too," he says.  "Those are casual clothes."

Taako snorts.  "Regulation IPRE sweats, riiiight."  He opens a drawer and pulls out a couple of red sweatshirts with the letters IPRE in bold white font across the front.  "They're only casual clothes if you actually wear them to relax, which you don't."

Davenport rolls his eyes.  "Okay, if we're going to be particular about semantics, what about Barry's jeans?  He wears them all the time, working or relaxing.  How do you count those?"

Taako flips one hand, dismissing the whole argument.  "Barold's his own special case.  We're talking about YOU."  The elf spins on his heel and points down at him.  "You promised us a mental health year so we can relax on the beach.  And that means you, too.  So Taako's gonna do you a huge favor and take time out of his busy schedule of doing fuck-all to make you some actual beach clothes.  You can thank me for it later.  And you can also thank me for it now."  He turns back to the closet before Davenport can protest.  "How did you get all these suits anyway?"  He pulls out a fancy three-piece suit with a brocaded waistcoat embroidered with silver threads.

Davenport snatches it out of his hand and hangs it back in the closet before it can be tossed on the floor, too.  "In case you've forgotten, Taako, I've had to spend several cycles negotiating with political leaders to get at the Light.  I have to look presentable and authoritative, and often that's required me dressing in local court fashions.  So, yes, I have a lot of suits.  And they're all very nice, if I do say so myself."

He hears footsteps behind him.  Great, now he has an audience.  Exactly what this scene doesn't need. 

"What's going on in here?"  Lucretia sticks her head in.  She's wearing a floral sarong and a tank top that reads _Two Suns Out Two Guns Out_.  One of Magnus's, knotted to fit on her much more slender frame.

Davenport opens his mouth to answer, but Taako cuts him off.  "Cap'nport has a suit fetish."

"I do not!" he snaps. 

"I bet you've got a sleep suit, like Barold's sleep jeans."

Davenport squeezes the bridge of his nose, pointedly not looking at Lucretia so she can't see how red his face probably is.  "They're called pajamas!  Regular pajamas!"

"Regulation IPRE pajamas," Lucretia offers, as if this is somehow either helpful or relevant.  Davenport doesn't even want to know how she knows.  He never leaves his room without being fully in uniform, his face washed and his hair done.  He has to look presentable, even first thing in the morning.  Especially first thing in the morning.

Taako opens up one of his dresser drawers and snorts, an evil grin spreading across his face.  "Oh my gods, Lucretia's right!  It's worse than I thought!"

He can already feel a migraine coming on.  He crosses the room and slams the drawer shut, barely missing Taako's fingers.  "Okay, you've had your laughs.  You wanna give me some casual clothes for the beach, fine!  But no more going through my stuff without permission.  Got it?"

Taako raises his hands in defeat.  "Okay, man, chill.  Only trying to help."  He tilts his head in thought, and his evil grin spreads even further.  "So, a chance to play dress up with Cap'nport!  Hey, I'm gonna go get Lup in on this.  We're gonna have a field day!"  And he slips out of the room, hurrying outside.

Lucretia has been looking at Davenport's open closet.  He crouches down and continues picking up his scattered uniforms, folding them neatly and putting them back into place.

"You really don't have any casual clothes?" she asks, more thoughtful than accusatory.

He shrugs.  "Like I said, never been necessary."  He hates that he let Taako get under his skin like that.  The tip of his tail is lashing in irritation, and he can't quite get it to settle.  It's always been his worst tell. 

"Why do you prefer suits so much, sir?" she asks, almost shyly.  Curious, but treading carefully.

He opens his mouth, closes it again.  He doesn't want to take out his irritation on Lucretia, who clearly only wants an honest answer.  He thinks about it.

"The uniform makes the man," he says.  "So much of success depends on presenting the right image to the world.  Putting your best side forward, you know?"  He folds up another of his captain jackets, with its fine gold piping and shining buttons like a row of tiny suns marching up a field of red.  The IPRE patch is over the breast, covering his heart. 

He glances over at Lucretia.  "And never underestimate how much a uniform can boost your confidence.  It helps you feel like you're in control."  He thinks this is something Lucretia needs to hear.  She's always had a problem with too little confidence in herself.

She considers this answer.  "Like, no matter what happens, you're still the captain?"

"Exactly."

"So…it's like armor for you."

He feels his face grow warm.  "Well, I wouldn't have thought to use that word exactly, but…yes, I suppose." 

She looks up.  "Wait, wait, hold that thought!  I've gotta add this to your book."  She turns and nearly barrels into Taako and Lup, who are on their way down the hall.

"Wait, what's this about Cap'nport's book?" asks Lup. 

"What book?" asks Davenport, now thoroughly confused.  Do they mean his Captain's Log?  He keeps that locked in his desk.  Nobody touches it but him.

"You know, the 'Book'," says Taako.  "The books Lucretia keeps on all of us!"

Lucretia returns quickly, breathless, a quill in one hand and a small, dark blue journal in the other.  Davenport can see a spray of small white stars painted on the cover before she opens it to a few pages in.  "Suits project confidence and encourage a sense of control," she says, her quill a white blur.  "Function as mental/emotional armor."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"  Davenport raises his hands, feeling increasingly like this situation is spinning out of his control.  "You're keeping journals on all of us?"  He'd seen Lucretia's journals; they'd always been focused on the worlds they visited, the details of their missions.  Not…whatever this was.

"Of course she is!" Lup crows.  "She's the mission chronicler, and the mission is the seven of us."

"It's all grist for the stellar biographies she's gonna write about all of us when we blast the Hunger into oblivion and return home as intergalactic heroes," Taako adds.

"We're gonna be _legends_."  Lup's smile shows a row of bright white teeth.

Davenport stares at the dark blue journal that is, apparently, a notebook of his life.  How could he have gone twenty cycles without being aware of this?  "May I see these journals?" he asks.

Lucretia looks up, a faint blush across her nose.  "Of—of course, captain."  She leads him to her office, which is crowded with stacks of journals everywhere, and points to a particular shelf.  "They're color-coded," she says.  "The red ones are Magnus volumes, the glittery purple for Taako, et cetera." 

"And the dark blue with stars are my volumes," Davenport finishes.

If anything, Lucretia's blush deepens.  "Volume," she corrects, and hands him the slim book.

Davenport takes a moment to process what she's saying.  He opens his volume, and finds only five and a half pages filled.  Magnus has three volumes so far, Taako and Lup each have four and they're all bulging.  Even Merle and Barry are into their second volumes.   

Five and a half pages for him.  Five and a half pages full of surface details, like "Captain Davenport prefers to get up every day at five a.m. sharp."  "Captain Davenport takes black coffee in the morning, green tea with honey in the afternoon."  "Captain Davenport thinks that country music is 'awful goddamned twangy noise.'"  And now his opinions on suits and uniforms. 

He suspects Lup is reading the room and realizes how deeply uncomfortable the silence has become.  She takes Taako by the arm.  "Well, why don't we let you two book nerds discuss things while Taako and I head to the kitchen and start brainstorming wardrobe overhauls?"  And she and Taako slip away, leaving him with Lucretia.

"It's…"  He swallows.  "There's so little here."  He's the captain of the mission.  Shouldn't he be so much bigger than this?  His cheeks burn.  Terrible choice of words.

Lucretia doesn't meet his eyes.  "Well, I mean, the journals are more for the sides of the crew outside the facts of the mission.  Personalities, opinions, likes and dislikes, things like that."  She forces a grin.  "Taako made sure I devoted at least twenty pages to his opinions on fashion."

He snorts. 

"You're just…not very vocal about your opinions, I guess."

He slams the book shut, harder than he intends, and hands it back to her.  "Well.  It's not like my personal opinions on country music have been relevant to the Mission.  Or that I have time to waste on learning how to, I dunno, cross-stitch samplers of vulgar phrases for our kitchen, as amusing as Lup's project was."  He knows he's getting defensive.  He takes a deep breath, forcing his shoulders to relax. 

Lucretia looks at the book in her hands.  "Even if your opinions on music aren't relevant to the mission, they're still relevant to you.  They're still…a part of you.  Davenport the person.  That's who I want to get to know."  She bounces the book nervously in her hands.  "We all do."

He frowns.  "Lucretia, I just can't…I don't have _time_ for that."  At her unhappy expression, he adds, "All right, so I don't have time for a…a rich personal life.  That's just the way it is.  It's a sacrifice I make willingly."

But Lucretia keeps going.  "But what about before the Mission?  What was your childhood like?  Did you like where you grew up?  Did you have a favorite hang-out spot?  People you looked up to?  What led you to the IPRE?"  She's normally not this pushy, but she's always been about the Story.

A twinge of old, long-ignored grief twists in his gut, but he ruthlessly pushes it down again.  "Fuck, Lucretia, what does that have to do with anything?  It's _gone_ , okay?"

Her face crumples.       

Damn.  He didn't mean to—damn it.   

He runs one hand down his face and sighs.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you, Lucretia.  This isn't you, it's…it's me."  He looks at his hands.  Fingers opening and closing, grasping at air.  "I just…I can't think about that right now.  It's hard enough leading this whole damn mission every single day.  I don't have the spare energy to devote to, to…"  He thinks carefully, tries to keep his voice steady.  "To what we've left behind."  Despite his best efforts, his voice breaks a little.

Lucretia nods, her mouth pressed tightly closed.  She holds the book to her chest, and doesn't meet his eyes.

He hurries on.  "I'm giving us a mental health year because we've all been tense and overworked and that's not good for anyone.  But as far as I'm concerned, as soon as the next cycle begins, I'm back on the clock.  And I'll continue to be on the clock until the mission is over.  That's what being captain means.  You understand that, right?"

Another nod.

He takes a deep breath, clasping his hands behind his back and forcing a small, kind smile.  "I tell you what.  When this Mission is all over, you and I can get together and I'll tell you all about my childhood home and my favorite hang-out café, and you can include it all in your stellar biographies of us legendary interdimensional heroes.  What do you say?  Deal?"

She finally meets his eyes and nods.  She's smiling now, too.  A small smile, but a start.  Good.

"All right!"  He claps his hands once together, breaking the last of the tension.  "Now that that's settled, I believe I need to meet up with the twins on the matter of my wardrobe.  See you down at the beach!" 

"Oh, captain?" she says.

"Hmm?"

She looks away, shy again.  "You know…you don't have to wear your armor so much around us." 

She means it kindly.  He knows that.  He sighs.  "Thank you, Lucretia.  I'll, ah, bear that in mind."  And he turns on his heel and heads off in the direction of the kitchen.

He hasn't gotten three steps before he hears the telltale scratch of Lucretia's quill behind him.  He glances over his shoulder.  She's writing into his book.

"Okay," he says, now genuinely smiling, "out of morbid curiosity, what are you adding now?"

But there's clear embarrassment as she looks between him and the page.  She frowns, hesitant, trying to read his face.  And then she reads, "Captain Davenport is deeply homesick."

His throat closes.  He gives her only the briefest of nods before turning and walking briskly away.


	4. Windows

Davenport loves windows.        

The outside world scares him.  It's big and crowded and noisy and just too _much_ sometimes.  But windows?  He likes those.  He can watch the city below him, take it piece by piece, and still be safe. 

He loves the sky.  It doesn't matter what it's doing, what time of day it is or what the weather is like.  He loves watching its colors shift, he loves the moon and the sun and all the different types of clouds, and he loves the stars so, so much. 

He has a particular love for birds.  The sky is their world, and they navigate it so easily.  Sometimes a bird will land on the windowsill.  He has to be careful then.  If he gets too close, if he moves too quickly, the bird will fly away.

Words are like birds to him.  Sometimes they will land at the corner of his awareness and stay, just for a little while.  If it's a really good, clear-headed sort of day, and if he focuses, he can get close enough to wrap his hands around them.  But if he's careless or upset or stumbling through a foggy day, the words scatter.

Only his name stays.

 

#

 

The first time Lucretia visits the Miller's floating lab, she holds tightly to Davenport's hand and speaks reassurances over the whole course of the trip.  He presses close to her side for most of the journey, watching everything with wary eyes.  The Miller lab lands in a remote field and a hatch in the side opens, revealing the scientist Dr. Maureen Miller and her son Lucas, who is quite tall for his twelve years.  The level of tech built into the floating base reminds her so much of the wild stuff built by the IPRE that she can't help but smile.  She quickly glances at Davenport to see how he's handling this new situation, but other than chewing his lip, he doesn't react. 

Of course, what would be unthinkable tech for most of the people on this world is just another flavor of new to him.

Dr. Miller smiles and extends a hand as they reache the open hatch.  "Lucretia, I take it?  I'm Dr. Miller.  It's lovely to meet you."

She has a firm, confident handshake. 

"Likewise," says Lucretia.

Dr. Miller's gaze turns to Davenport, and she holds out her hand to him.  "Nice to meet you.  Dr. Miller."

He reflexively ducks behind Lucretia, staring at the hand with wide eyes.  "Davenport."

"This is Davenport," she hurries to explain.  "He's my ward.  He—he doesn't really speak.  I hope you don't mind that I brought him, he hates to be left alone for long but I promise he won't be any trouble at all!"  She realizes she's babbling, and falls silent.

She expects Dr. Miller to do what everyone else has ever done at this point in the conversation:  to slide her attention away from him, relegating him to the position of non-entity.  A pity case to be addressed only with occasional baby-talk.

So it surprises her when Dr. Miller doesn't do that.  She withdraws her hand but doesn't turn away from him, doesn't shift her voice like she's talking to a child.  "Well, it's lovely to meet you, Davenport.  Welcome to my lab.  We've got a lot of prototype inventions and displays inside, and it can get pretty loud, but I promise that it's all very safe.  Would you like to come inside?"

Davenport looks up at Lucretia, uncertain.  Waiting for her go-ahead.

She gives him what she hopes is an encouraging smile.  "It's all right," she says. 

He steps out from behind her and holds out his hand to Dr. Miller.  "Davenport."

Dr. Miller smiles, and shakes his hand.

 

#

 

Dr. Miller is exactly the ally Lucretia needs.  She's smart, sure of her own abilities but not overconfident, and takes everything Lucretia tells her in stride.  It doesn't take her long to decide she's trustworthy enough to be given the ichor.  Once Maureen's eyes are opened, she throws herself heartily into what she refers to as 'The Cause.'

Unfortunately, the loss of the world's memories of the relics means that tracking them is going to be difficult.  In the three months since the Redaction, most of the trails have gone long cold.  The Staff and the Bell had been flukes, and Lucretia does not get that lucky again.

She'll need many more allies than Dr. Miller and her son.  She needs to build a network of agents, an entire organization that can spread itself around the world.  She needs a headquarters that can remain undetected, unassailable.  She has to get this right.

It's going to take so much time.  It's going to take _years._

She had promised Magnus that it would be over soon.  She really believed it, at the time.

She thinks of her friends spending years as they are now:  beach and carpentry shop and fledgling cooking show.  Barry…somewhere, alive and confused, or hiding out as a Lich, alone and desperate.  Lup still missing.  Davenport cut off from so much of himself, living but not thriving, a part of this world but unable to grasp it.

Unlike Maureen, he doesn't remember the relics, or the wars.  She sees him wince whenever she speaks about them in his presence, and makes sure to get him settled somewhere on the other side of the lab, in her sight but outside the range of their low voices.

She learns that it doesn't bother him if she talks about the planes.  She'd erased the part of his memory that knew about the planes, but she hadn't erased the general knowledge of planes from the world.  It's a crucial difference, she discovers.  It's the same reason he still enjoys listening to her sing, even though he has forgotten how.

He seems to grow comfortable with the lab after several visits.  Soon he's not even bothered by the excitable, energetic Lucas and his various robot prototypes zipping around the place, flashing and banging and sometimes exploding.  Davenport's found a favorite seat by one of the lab's big bay windows, and can spend the whole visit with his nose pressed against the thick glass, watching the world turn slowly below.

 

#

 

It's a good day today.  The sky is bright and the world below him is spotted with patches of red and orange and yellow as the trees change color.  The weather has turned cold and windy but the lab is always the perfect temperature.

He flips the next card in the tarot deck.  _Chariot._   His eyes slide over the word.  "Davenport," he says, then sets it in the pile at his feet.  He turns the next card over.  _Heirophant._   Well, that's a loss.  "Davenport."  Into the pile it goes. 

The next one is _The Sun._   He…he thinks he might be able to manage that one.  "S-s-sun," he says, and smiles.  That card goes into a new stack:  all the words he has today.  It's much smaller than the not-words pile. 

It's followed by _The Star._   He likes this one.  The art shows a woman standing beneath the night sky, a single bright star just above her forehead.  The word is…a little tricky.  It's the S and T together that trips up his tongue.  "St-st—"  He frowns.  He tries closing his eyes and imagining the night sky outside his window, the way it makes him feel almost like he's home.  _"Star."_   He beams.  He's so glad he got that one today!  Into the words pile it goes.

He looks at the card's writing again.  _The Star._ For a brief moment, he thinks it seems…incomplete?  Like there's a hole there, an extra word or part-of-word that's missing.  He tries to think why that is, but he can't complete the thought before the static snaps and his thoughts go sliding off in a different direction, and he finds himself staring out the big window again and wondering what he was thinking about.

The sky is bright today.  There's a handful of big puffy clouds casting their shadows over the landscape far below.  He watches them for a bit before turning over the next card.

_The Empress._   It's a tall, upright woman in blue and white robes, holding a staff.  Her skin is pale and her hair is gold, but there's something in her steady gaze and her posture that reminds him of—

"Lucretia."  The name pops out of his mouth, surprising even him.

Lucretia looks up from where she's looking over some kind of map with Maureen.  "Davenport?"

"Lucretia!"  He gets to his feet and dashes across the room, waving the card.  "Lucretia, Lucretia!"  He hands it to her, pointing at the lady in robes.

Maureen laughs.  She has a very friendly laugh that Davenport likes to hear.  "I can see the resemblance," she says.  "You both have that look about you."

Lucretia looks over the card, and nods thoughtfully.  "Wardrobe goals," she deadpans, prompting a snort from Maureen.  She smiles at Davenport, handing him back the card.  "Good job, Davenport!  You think I'd look good in that get-up?"

"Davenport!"  He would.

They let him climb up onto the big table, moving the map to give him room to lay out his card piles.  They're talking about building some kind of base.  He lets the sound of their voices wash over him.  He keeps working his way through the deck, separating the words from the not-words. 

"Of course," says Maureen, "a base big enough to house all the personnel and supplies you'd need would have to be pretty big.  The lab is small enough to be just a distant speck when it's at full altitude, but this....Well, people are going to _notice_ unless you have some damn powerful illusion."

He flips over the next card.  "Moon," he says.

The conversation stops.  Both Maureen and Lucretia look up at him.  He pauses in his work, wondering if he's done something wrong.  Sometimes he does the wrong thing without meaning to, and then Lucretia gets sad and he gets flustered and all the words scatter.

But a slow smile is creeping across both their faces.  Lucretia laughs softly.

"Davenport," she says, "how would you like to live on the moon?"

Davenport blinks.  He looks out the window at the big lovely stretch of sky.  He can't see the moon right now but he knows it's even higher than the lab.  He points to the ceiling.  "Up?"

"That's right."

He grins so wide his cheeks ache.  "Davenport!"  The idea so delights him that, impulsively, he hugs Lucretia.    "Davenport!"  Yes, yes, he would _love_ to live in the sky.   

He could live there forever.

 

#

 

It's their first Candlenights after the Redaction.

That's how she thinks of it in her mind, like it's a new calendar system, overriding the midsummer-to-midsummer yearly calendar they'd used for a century.  It's about six months After Redaction, and it is her first Candlenights alone with Davenport.

He's wearing a goofy novelty waistcoat she'd bought for him when they'd gone shopping a few days before.  It's bright green with several brass jingle bells sewn into the front, and as he runs around their Neverwinter apartment, he laughs and jingles, reveling in the joyful noise he's making. 

The Captain would never have worn such a thing.

No, that's not true.  She thinks back on her memories and course-corrects.  She cannot start mis-remembering them so soon.  Especially not him.

The Captain would have worn it if it had been a gift, even a prank gift.  Probably from one of the twins.  He would have pulled it out of its package, one eyebrow raised archly, and given a perfectly sincere-sounding "Thank you," before putting it on right there with all the deliberate care in the world.  And he would have spent the rest of the evening carefully maintaining the most serious, deadpan expression, slotting himself into the role of Straight Man in their comedy act.  He would have moved around a lot, getting the crew used to the sound of him jingling like a belled cat.  And when they got used to it, when they associated him with ringing, he would bespell the bells to mute them, sneak up behind his benevolent gift-giver(s), and shout "HAPPY CANDLENIGHTS, MOTHERFUCKER!!"

The imagined scene, culled from the so-familiar shenanigans of the crew from a hundred other Candlenights, brings a brief smile to her face.

Now, Davenport enjoys the waistcoat unironically.  He'd been utterly delighted by it in the marketplace, and she could not say no.

A heavy, silencing snow is falling over the city.  She hands him his gift, which he unwraps eagerly.  It's a small pocket spyglass, gnomish-made, delicate and sized for his hands.  He makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat, extends it and peers through it, sweeping his gaze over the room.

Lucretia manages a small, dry laugh.  "You like it?"

"Davenport!"  He snaps it shut, extends it again, eyes traveling over the delicate etching along the tube.  He looks up at her, and with only the tiniest pause, he says, "Th-thank you.  Lucretia."

Her heart thuds in her ears.  She rubs her eyes with the heel of one hand.  "You're welcome, Davenport."

He reaches under the tree and holds out the present he's wrapped for her.  The paper is wrinkled and unevenly cut, the ribbon messily knotted.  But she sees the creases that he got almost even, she sees the method in the knot. He'd wrapped it with care and attention. 

It isn't perfect, but it's the best he could do.  

She unwraps it.  And stares at the gift in confusion.  It's one of her journals, which she'd let him have not long after the Redaction. 

Well.  She supposes she can't be too surprised at a re-gift.  It's not like he had a chance to go shopping on his own and buy things without her noticing.

She opens the black cover and her heart feels like it's dropping to her feet.  Scrawled messily across the first two pages is the word DAVNPoRt, the last letter trailing off into the white space like a cry of despair.

Davenport looks up at her, a tentative smile on his face, waiting for her reaction.

She gathers herself, tries to ignore the desperate beating of her own heart.  She turns the pages.

She'd given him bits of charcoal and pastels and colored wax pencils long ago, hoping that it would help his fine motor control.  And here it is, the journal that he'd filled with drawings over the past six months.  There are crude shapes and blobs of color, loops and unsteady lines.  But as she turns the pages, the images change to recognizable objects:  a red bird, a green frog spotted in brown, a tree against a blue-violet sky.  Stars, over and over again.  And so many pictures of her:  a dark brown stick figure in robes of various colors, holding her staff.  Sometimes he's standing next to her, his hair a wild orange flame, his moustache two neat little lines in the middle of his face, his tail a flame-tipped squiggle and his hands little circles, one of them often overlapping one of hers.

It's a record of his growing awareness:  of himself, of the world around him, of _them_. 

"Thank you, Davenport," she manages, her voice hardly breaking at all.  She smiles at him.  "This is very thoughtful of you." 

He beams, then takes the spyglass and heads to the window.  She seats herself on the couch and takes her time going through the journal.

For a while, peace falls over the apartment.  She doesn't even notice Davenport again until he climbs up onto the couch and leans against her.

He looks up into her face, smiling.  "T-today is a v-very good day," he says.  His voice is quiet, almost reverent.  His eyes are the most lucid she's ever seen them.

She allows herself to smile back, idly brushing a stray lock of hair from his face.  Out of habit, she finger-combs the wild orange waves back into place.  He closes his eyes and leans into the contact.

"Davenport," she says, "are you happy?"

"Y-yeah," he says, looking up at her again.  "Today is nice.  Here.  With you."

She'd meant the question in the general sense, but she'd take what she could get.

He reaches up, pats her on the cheek.  "You happy?"

"I'm happy if you're happy," she says.  It's mostly true.

Davenport squints up into her face, his serene smile slipping.  Like he knows she's not saying something.

She looks away.  "I just—I suppose I'm feeling a little melancholy.  I used to have a lot of…very dear friends, Davenport, but I can't be with them right now."

"Oh."

"I just wonder how they're celebrating Candlenights.  If they're well, and happy."

He looks out at the living room, with its small tree and only the two presents, now opened.  He hesitates, lips moving in silence, thinking hard about words.  "M-maybe you'll s-see them again.  Someday.  Soon."

"Mmm."  She continues to brush back his hair with her fingers for a moment, then lets her hand come to rest on his shoulder.  "Someday, I'm certain.  But it'll be a while."

"B-but I'm here."

"Yes, you are."

They watch the snow drift out of the heavy gray sky, covering the world in silence.

 

#

 

Early in the Spring, a bird builds a nest on the living room windowsill.  When Davenport realizes what's happening, the same bird always returning and building this nest twig by twig like it plans to _stay_ , he is absolutely delighted.  "Davenport!" he tells Lucretia, pointing at the window.  "Daven-davenport!"  It's not a word day for him, it's a gray-haze kind of day that isn't great but isn't bad either.

"Oh!"  She looks at the bird in the window, and gives him a soft smile.  "Here, watch this."  She pulls out her wand and casts a spell at the window.  A window-shaped square just inside the glass begins to shimmer, ever so slightly.  "It's a minor illusion, but it should last a while.  It'll make it look like the apartment is empty.  So if you're very quiet, you should be able to get as close as you want to, and watch her make her home."

Davenport beams.  "Davenport!"  He wishes he could thank her with proper words today.  He settles for giving her hand a squeeze.

Soon enough, the bird settles into her new nest.  Sometimes a second bird comes and brings her food.  Their plumage is a soft, pale gray like an overcast sky.  Lucretia calls them silver jays, and he can see why.  On sunny days, there's a faint glossy shimmer on their feathers, making them look silvery.

The mother lays four eggs, blue as a clear sky.

The eggs hatch, one by one, and damp, bedraggled chicks stagger out of their shells.  Davenport makes that little delighted squeak that sometimes pops up in the back of his throat, and he clamps a hand over his mouth.  But the chicks are peeping so loudly that the mother doesn't hear him through the glass.

He sketches them in the new journal Lucretia has given him.  He practices and practices, getting his drawings closer to _right_ every time.  He's getting very good at drawing birds.  Sometimes Lucretia joins him, pulling up a chair and sketching or painting the domestic scenes unfolding on their windowsill.  He thinks her work is so beautiful.  Her sketches are almost exactly like the real thing, and the washes of color make his heart leap up into his throat, in the good way.

Even his bad days are a little better, knowing the birds are there.  He used to hide from bad days, tucking himself under his quilt, trying to shut out the dizzying fog and the hiss of static in his own head.  He…well, he still does that.  But now he calls Lucretia to carry him out to the living room, just for a little while, so he can watch the nest.  She tucks him into the big armchair beside the window, propping him up on pillows and wrapping him in his quilt, and he sits there for a while with his forehead against the cool glass, feeling a little better about being in the world.

So it goes for weeks.

It's not until the babies have grown in their feathers fully that he realizes something is wrong.  Three of the babies test out their growing wings, flapping them in silvery blurs as they hop along the wide sill.  But the fourth has a wing that won't function.  It's too small, the feathers have come in all wrong.  Its short test flights are wobbly and it can't gain any height.  So it just hops along the sill, watching as its siblings leave the nest one by one.

Davenport rushes to get Lucretia.  "Davenport!" he cries, tugging at her sleeve.  "Davenport, davenport!"  He's starting to panic a little, thinking of the bird falling off the sill and landing on the street far below, and his name tumbles out of him over and over.  Even he isn't sure what he's trying to say.

Lucretia puts down the book she's writing in.  "Okay, deep breaths, Davenport.  It's hard for me to understand you like this.  Just take a deep breath, focus, and show me what's wrong."

Focus.  He needs to focus.  He points to the window.  "Davenport."

Lucretia gets up and goes to the window.  He points to the baby bird more urgently.  She frowns, rubs the bridge of her nose.  "I'm sorry, Davenport," she says, keeping her voice low to avoid startling the birds.  "Sometimes that just…happens.  Not all baby animals survive."

His head reels.  He points to the window again.  "Davenport…"

"There's nothing we can do."

He—he can't accept that.  He can't just leave this baby out there to die.  He reaches towards the window, gestures scooping it up and bringing it into the apartment.

Lucretia's eyebrows lift.  "You…want us to keep the bird?"

He nods.

She rubs her chin, looks out at the sill.  "I suppose I can get a cage from the marketplace—"

"No," he says.  No cages.  He runs to the hall closet and comes back with a big shoebox.  Open to the sky.  The bird can't fly but it doesn't deserve to be a prisoner.  He can tear off one side of the box so it can come and go freely.  The box will just be like a new nest for it.

Lucretia sighs.  "It's going to be a big responsibility," she says.  "We're going to have to take care of it every day."

He nods.  "Davenport."

"All right.  I'm going to open the window.  The movement's going to startle them both, so you have to be ready to catch the baby before it falls."

He sets down the box and moves into position, giving her a thumbs up.

Lucretia unlocks and lifts the window in one quick, smooth motion.  The mother bird flies away in a blur of feathers.  The baby hops away, wings blurring in distress, and stumbles off the ledge, but Lucretia's wand is already out.  "Levitate!"

The baby bird hovers just beyond the sill, one wing blurring as it turns slowly in air.  Davenport leans out and scoops it up in his hands, making soft cooing noises at it.  He pulls it inside and sets it in the box.

Lucretia smacks her hands.  "All right," she says, "I guess we have a pet bird now.  Yep, this is a thing we're doing."

"Davenport!" 

They crouch down over the box.  The bird hops back and forth, looking at them both with bright eyes.  It tweets a few querying notes at them.

"It's a she," says Lucretia, pointing.  "The males have a darker ring around the neck, but she doesn't.  Do you want to give her a name?"

He nods.  He opens his mouth, tries to get at the word he wants.  "Davenport."  No, no that's not it.  That's _his_ name.  He tries again but the word won't come.  It's not a word day.  The earlier 'no' had been a lucky fluke.

But he knows what he wants to name her.  He runs to the bedroom and comes back with his tarot deck.  He shuffles through the cards, and holds out the one he wants, pointing to the word at the bottom.

"Star?"  Lucretia looks at him, and at the bird.  "You want to name her Star?"

He nods.  "Davenport!"

"Okay, Star it is.  Welcome to the family, Star."


	5. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning in this chapter for a panic attack. Also Lucretia being a Disaster who makes questionable choices. But that's pretty much a given.

Here are the things Lucretia learns brings Davenport comfort on his bad days:

  *   Music
  *   Being read to
  *   Looking at his star chart or the night sky
  *   Playing with Star
  *   Gentle back rubs
  *   Having his hair brushed



It's the last one that surprises her.  The Captain had always been very particular about his hair, always making sure it was meticulous before leaving his berth every morning.  When Lup and Taako initiated Group Spa Days where they'd all pile into the common room and pamper each other, the Captain never let anyone touch his hair.  He'd allow his nails to be painted, he'd allow shoulder rubs and the occasional pedicure, but his hair was off-limits.

But now, long after Davenport has gotten the hang of grooming himself, he still sometimes asks Lucretia to do it.  His hair doesn't even have to be messy.  Sometimes he just brings her his hairbrush in the middle of the day.  She never says no.  He seems to find it relaxing.

She wonders if the Captain always secretly wanted someone to touch his hair but was reluctant to ask.  She wonders if it's just a holdover from the first few weeks After Redaction, when the soothing, rhythmic contact was one of the few things that could ground him.

A hidden side of the Captain, or a new side of Davenport, growing up around the scars she gave him.  That's always the question, isn't it?

 

#

 

Lucretia is relieved at how easily Star fits into their little domestic routine.  Davenport often forgets things, but he almost never forgets to take care of her.  Lucretia keeps an eye on them just the same, but if anything, the little bird gives him something to focus on.  His good days come more frequently.

Lucretia doesn't buy a cage.  But she does compromise and buy a little birdhouse with a removable lid.  They fill the bottom with soft rags, dry rushes, and a few climbing twigs, and it becomes Star's bedroom.

Star can't really fly, but she can pump her wings enough to get a decent, wobbly hop from the table onto Davenport's shoulder.  Or, barring that, she uses her feet to climb up his sleeve.

Once, Davenport lays his chin on the table to watch her peck at a pile of seeds.  She tilts her head at him and hops up onto the top of his head.  She fluffs up her feathers and settles into his hair like it's a second nest, and Lucretia finds herself laughing despite herself.  Davenport smiles, and doesn't move for an hour.

 

#

 

There's a pressure in Davenport's chest and he doesn't know what to do with it.  He doesn't even really know what it is.  But it's been growing for a while now, and it bothers him.  Like an itch he can't scratch.  Like there's something he needs to be doing, but every time he tries to remember _what_ , it slips out of his grasp, and he finds himself staring at the walls again.

But if he'd forgotten to do something important, Lucretia would tell him.  Lucretia always reminds him when he forgets things.

Then he gets Star, and the pressure eases a little.  It's easier to get up every day when he knows there's something to do, someone who needs him.  Star is depending on him, and he can't fail her.  So every day he makes sure to feed her, change her water, make sure her cage is clean.  He plays games with her, like "tug on this twig" or "where's Star?" or "follow the trail of seeds!"  He wears the scarf Lucretia got him last winter, so Star can nestle in its folds while he moves around the apartment.  Or sometimes he just holds her, cupped in his hands, and listens to her sing.

It's nice.

But then the pressure starts to build again, and it's driving him up a wall.  There should be more he ought to be doing, right?  Something he's forgetting, something he _needs to_ \--

Star chirps at him, pulling him out of his endless spiraling thoughts.  He finds himself in the middle of the apartment, standing empty-handed and confused.  He's been pacing for a long time.

 

#

 

Lucretia is brewing tea and setting out some cookies on a plate for an afternoon snack.  Davenport is leaning on the counter and watching her, having dragged his stepping stool into the kitchen. 

"Davenport help," he says suddenly.

"Hmm?"

"Davenport _help_."  He points to the tray, holds out his hands.

"No, Davenport, thanks but I've got it."

He frowns, huffing in irritation.  "W-wanna help."

Lucretia gives him a long look.  "You don't need to help me, Davenport," she says.  "I take care of you, remember?"

He lays his face in his arms and mumbles something she can't make out.

 

#

 

Maureen thinks it's a good idea.  "If he wants to help out, you should let him," she says.  She's looking over some notes about the new anti-gravity device she's building, one big enough to support a fake moon in the sky.

Lucretia doesn't explain how odd and awful it would make her feel.  She's taken so much from Davenport, the idea of having him do _chores_ for her twists the knot of guilt in her chest.  "I dunno," she says instead.  "He's not the most coordinated, and sometimes his attention wanders.  I'm afraid he'll hurt himself.  Drop a kettle on his toes, or something."

Maureen snorts.  "So don't start with giving him knives or setting him at the stove.  Start small, see what he can do, and build from there."

She must have noticed the reluctance in Lucretia's face.  "He's _bored,_ Lucretia.  He wants to be a contributing member of the household.  So let him."  She points a quill at her.  "You said yourself that he's been focusing a lot better since he got that pet bird of his, right?"

"Yes, but…"

Maureen gives her a pointed look.

Lucretia glances at Davenport, who's pacing by the lab's big window.  The tip of his tail swishes in that way it used to back when he was the Captain, if he was stuck on board the ship waiting for something, restless and ready to start climbing the walls. 

"Okay," she says.  "Okay."

 

#

 

One day, in the middle of a bright, sunny morning, Lucretia takes Davenport into the bedroom and shows him how to make the beds and fluff the pillows.  He follows along as well as he can.  The pressure in his chest eases. 

She pins the instructions where he can read them, in case he forgets a step or two.  He smiles.  He likes when Lucretia leaves him reminders.

"Well," she says when they've finished.  "I think that's a good start--"

Impulsively, he grabs the broom from the corner of the bedroom and starts running it across the floor, as he's seen Lucretia do once or twice, back when they first moved here.  But it's been a long time since she's used it, and the floor is dirty.

"Davenport?"  Lucretia reaches as if to take the broom from him.  "You don't need to--really--"

He swings it out of range of her hands and keeps sweeping.  Clouds of dirt fly up into the air.

"Easy, Davenport!"  Lucretia hastily opens a window, covering her mouth as she coughs.  "You need to, uh--use slower, controlled strokes.  And, uh, in the same direction.  That's it!  Try to form all the dirt into a nice pile." 

He follows her instructions, focusing on the task as hard as he can.  Slowly the floor begins to improve.  The pressure eases even more, and something clicks in his brain.  This is something he can do, something that needs to be done.  Their home is a mess, and he needs to keep it in good order.  He points to the dustpan.  "Davenport!" he says, very firmly.

Lucretia looks at him for a moment, and he can't read her expression.  He wonders if he's done something wrong.  But then she nods, and grabs the dustpan.

 

#

           

The next thing Lucretia knows, they've gone through the whole apartment, giving it a thorough and much-needed Spring Cleaning.  Now that it's sparkling, she realizes--with a little shock and a lot of chagrin--how neglected she'd let it become. 

She stretches, cracking her back.  Sometimes she forgets she's physically in her forties now. 

She had still done most of the heavy work, but Davenport had been unstoppable, full of so much energy that her heart squeezed with pangs of uneasy nostalgia.  But she swallows it down and keeps her voice level when she says, "Thank you, Davenport.  This really was a big help."

"Davenport!" he says, in a tone of mock-admonishment.  As if to say, _I told you so._

 

#

 

It's nearly two years After Redaction when it occurs to Lucretia that she should probably keep track of birthdays.  It's weird to even wrap her mind around how old she is, and she doesn't particularly relish the idea of celebrating her own.  But Davenport didn't age twenty years in Wonderland, and it would be nice to give him a special day.

So she leaves him enough food in the cooling box for a few days, and takes a trip back to the Starblaster to dig through her old notes.  She'd kept them going back to the IPRE days, and had written meticulous notes about all the crew's biographic data, including their birthdays, even if they'd stopped celebrating them by about Cycle 25.

The truth of Davenport's birthday hits her like a blow.  It crashes down on her like the dead weight of Magnus's 6'3" frame passing out on top of her, like the blast of Taako's wand scorching the deck of the Starblaster, like the sound of Davenport screaming his own name as if that could possibly save him.

She is numb for most of the trip back.  When she finally brings herself to enter the apartment, he smiles up at her from the living room floor, tail swishing in happiness, and greets her with a friendly "Davenport!"  Star is at his feet, hopping along and pecking at a trail of seeds he's laid out for her.

The sight shatters her a second time.  Innocent, trusting Davenport with his pet bird that can't fly is so fucking on point it hurts.  She drops her bags, shuts the door behind her.  Her legs give out beneath her, and she begins to sob. 

Davenport hurries to her side.  She throws her arms around his narrow shoulders, desperate for an absolution he can't give.  "Oh gods, Davenport," she sobs, "I'm so sorry!  I didn't know, I'm so fucking sorry!"

"Davenport?" he asks, his voice cracking in alarm.  _"Davenport?"_

The next thing she knows, she's confessing everything to him.  He winces, his growing alarm turning to panic, and she knows in some distant part of her brain that it's all static to him, she's pouring static into his ears and it's _scaring_ him, he has no idea what's going on but her confession pours out of her like a waterfall she can't hold back.  He squirms out of her arms, an inarticulate whine breaking out of his throat, but she grabs him by the wrist and holds him there, _she needs him to hear this,_ she can't breathe and she's drowning and he's all she has to hold onto but she's hurt him _so, so much_. 

"Gods, Davenport," she sobs, "I'm _so sorry_."  She holds him till her breathing steadies and her limbs listen to her again.  Her hand falls to her side, and she sits back on her heels, feeling like her soul has been flayed and wrung out.

Davenport stumbles backwards and lands on his rear.  His cheeks are wet with tears, and his eyes are vacant, staring at nothing.

 

#

 

The next day, she makes Davenport all his favorite foods for every meal, following the instructions in Taako's cookbook as well as she can.  It's not a good day for him.  He's sluggish and loopy.  But the food seems to cheer him a little, and he gives her a weak smile over lunch.  She honestly doesn't know if he remembers what happened yesterday, or if his brain just shut down from the static and wiped away the whole thing.

She buys him a music player from the market.  It looks like a large, bulky music box with a cone on top for amplifying the sound.  It comes with a handful of bespelled crystals which, when placed in a special slot, cause the box to play a particular song. 

After night falls, she carries the box and a bottle of wine up to the roof, Davenport following behind with a couple of thick blankets.  They lay on the roof and watch the stars drift by, music playing softly in the background, until Davenport falls asleep curled up against her side.

 

#

 

Today is a very good day.  Davenport stands at attention in his fancy new waistcoat, practically bouncing at Lucretia's side.  The world feels right and his head feels clear and he has so many words.  Today he's going to show Lucretia what he can do.

There's a knock at the apartment door.  Lucretia gives him a nod, and he takes up position behind her as she opens the door.  There's a tall man with dark hair and a dark moustache and a squarish jaw, wearing a cloak still dripping from the rain outside. 

He looks her up and down.  "You the Director?"

Lucretia nods.  "Lieutenant Bane, I presume?  Won't you come in."

He wipes his feet on the mat and enters.  Davenport approaches.  "May I take your cloak?"

Lieutenant Bane grunts a "Thanks" and hands him the cloak.  Davenport carries it over to the coat rack, and clambers up his stepping stool to hang it on a free hook.

"Thank you for coming, Lieutenant Bane," says Lucretia.  "Other than the rain, I hope your travel was pleasant."

"Pleasant enough.  But I'm not here in my official capacity as a lieutenant.  You can just call me Captain."

Davenport's foot slips on the stool, but he catches himself. 

"It's my first name.  I admit it's a bit confusing."

"Your name is Lieutenant Captain Bane?"  Lucretia arches an eyebrow. 

He laughs.  "All the more reason to make sure I get promoted."  He's looking over the apartment.  "I hope you don't mind if we skip the pleasantries, though, and get straight to business.  You say you're forming some sort of disarmament group?"

"Yes, of course.  That is exactly what I'd like to discuss with you."  She gestures to the couch.  The one with the ugly floral print has been replaced with one that is squarish and blue.  "Won't you have a seat?  And would you care for some tea?"

"Tea would be good.  The rain is damned chilly."

"Davenport?  Some tea for our guest."

"Right away!" he says, heading over to the kitchen counter.  In recent months, Lucretia has finally let him near the stove to brew tea.  He's proud of how easily he figured it out.  Even on his middling days, he can still manage tea.  He puts the kettle on the heat and sets a brand-new silver tray with a pair of teacups and saucers and a small honey pot.  He gets another platter and sets it with assorted cookies.  Behind him, Lucretia is talking with the visitor.  She's taken the new armchair for her seat.  Like the couch, it is angular and blue.  She's wearing blue and white robes that look almost exactly like the ones on his _Empress_ card.

He sets out the cookies and the tea, and everything is perfect.  Lucretia gives him a very small, restrained smile.  "Thank you, Davenport.  I'll call you if I need anything more."

He bobs his head and retreats to the bedroom.  He leaves the door open just a little, so he can hear his name being called.

Star is perched on the desk next to her little house.  He scoops her up and puts her gently on the floor, then seats himself next to her, legs crossed and his newest journal propped open on his knees.  Star climbs up his sleeve and settles on his shoulder.  From his box of colors, he pulls out his dark brown and his blue wax pencils, and begins to draw Lucretia in her fancy new armchair.

He sits in silence for a while, the sound of conversation a pleasant background murmur.  Rain patters against the window panes.  Star tugs playfully at the curl of orange hair that hangs down by his ear. 

He stops drawing.  Something is--something is off.  He can't put his finger on it.  It's a good day, he should be fine, he--

What is he doing?

Star chirps in his ear.

He blinks.  The journal is open on his lap.  He'd been drawing.  He picks up the blue and starts again, filling in the color on the armchair.  Brown for Lucretia's hand sticking out of the sleeve of her robe.  Brown for her face, too, and pink for her lips--

His thoughts scatter again.  In the back of his awareness, the static growls.  He blinks, trying to focus.

What's going on?  He's--he should be--the day had been going so _well_.  But now the fog is creeping in and he feels dizzy, like he's falling loose from the world.  He closes the journal and grabs his knees, taking deep breaths to steady himself.  He needs to be good today.  Lucretia needs him.  He wants so badly to help her.

He should try to focus.  Something's making the static hungry.  Good days usually stay good unless something bad happens.

His ears flick towards the open door.  He tries to focus on the sound of Lucretia's voice, her low and steady rhythms.

"--and that's exactly what my concern is," she's saying.  "A powerful wizard who becomes dangerous can be confronted, imprisoned, taken down as needed.  The world has checks and balances for such a situation.  But an artifact?  A powerful artifact can change hands, can be used by anybody.  A magical weapon of mass destruction can wind up in the hands of a _child_ , and suddenly a whole village is blown off the map, Captain."

She's calling him.  She--

No, she's not calling him.  His name is _Davenport._

Why would he--

"So that's your goal.  World disarmament by the elimination of magical artifacts."

"Not all artifacts," she says.  "Your cloak is enchanted with Protection from Elements, for example, but it's not going to level a city, Captain."

His ears flick.  She's calling--

He shakes his head, rubs one balled-up fist against his forehead.  Why does he think she's calling him?  He tries to think why but his thoughts go sliding off and he finds himself staring at the floor.  He can hear Star chirping in his ear but he can't--he can't--

"Sounds like quite the enterprise," says the guest.  The clink of ceramic.  "Excellent tea, by the way."

"Thank you, Captain.  Davenport can brew more if you'd like--"

Static spikes through his brain.  His head reels.  He grips his knees, white-knuckled.  He tries to breathe.  A low moan escapes him.

The conversation falls silent.  There's a pause.  "Excuse me a moment," says Lucretia.  He hears the tap of her staff like distant thunder.

She appears at his side, the door swinging almost-shut behind her.  "Davenport," she says in a low voice.  One hand grips his shoulder.  "Are you all right?"

He looks up at her.  His mouth opens but he doesn't know what to say.  His words are vanishing into the fog and he doesn't know what to do to keep them.

She frowns.  "You're looking a bit pale," she says.  "Why don't you have a drink of water and get to bed?  I can take it from here."

He shakes his head.  "N-no," he manages.  "I--I can d-do this.  I'm okay."

"I don't want you pushing yourself."

He looks up, manages to focus on her face.  " _Please_."

Her frown doesn't go away.  She rubs the bridge of her nose.  "All right, Davenport," she says.  She pats him on the shoulder.  "But if it gets bad, there's no shame in tapping out, okay?"

He nods. 

She heads back to the living room.  He listens, but she doesn't say the word that makes his head spin again.  Just in case, he puts a hand over his mouth and whispers _davenport davenport I'm davenport_ until he feels steady again.

           

#

 

When Lieutenant Bane is ready to leave, Lucretia calls for Davenport.  He emerges quickly, and she's happy to note that there's more color in his cheeks.  He retrieves Bane's cloak and hands it to him.  "Your cloak, sir," he says, clearly and without stuttering.

"Thanks," says Bane, hardly noticing Davenport.  He and Lucretia shake hands and exchange a promise to be in touch, then he leaves.

There's a moment of weighty silence in the apartment, broken only by the steady patter of rain on the windows.

Davenport looks up at her.  "Did I do good?"

She squeezes his shoulder.  "You did very well, Davenport.  Thank you."

He smiles.  There's a faint trace of exhaustion in his face, but his gaze is clear and steady.

How could she have been so stupid as to say the word 'Captain' over and over within his hearing?  She'd have to add it to the list of words to avoid.  "Are you feeling better?" 

"Yeah!" he says, giving her a thumbs-up.  "All good."  He heads over to the coffee table to gather the dirty dishes.

She sighs.  The rain makes her knees ache these days.  "Davenport," she says, "I'm glad you're feeling better.  But I meant what I said.  You shouldn't push yourself if you're not feeling well."

"No, no, I'm good!"  He gives her a big grin, but she can tell it's forced. 

"I know, I know.  But in the future…I'm not going to be disappointed in you if you have to rest.  You know that, right?"

His grin slides away.  He looks at the pile of dishes in his hands.  "But I want to, to help.  To help you.  I don't want to…"  His mouth works in silence for a moment.  "I don't want to be a…a _burden_."

The word strikes her like a blow.  "Davenport," she says, kneeling in front of him, ignoring the pain in her knees.  "Don't think that!  You're not a burden."

He looks her straight in the eye, brows furrowed.  "Don't lie."

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart.  "All right," she says, picking her words carefully.  "So you and I both know that things can be a bit…challenging sometimes.  Things can be hard for you, and sometimes you need help.  But I'm happy to help you, Davenport, as much as you need.  I know you work hard to get better, and I'm so proud of that!  But even if every day were a bad day for you, I'd still help you, and gladly.  Because I love you, Davenport."

He is silent for a moment, turning this over in his head.  "Why?" he asks, the word faint and strained.  "Why me?"

She…hadn't expected that question. 

Of course he wouldn't know why she loved him.  From his perspective, he woke up in a room one day, unable to remember anything, and there she was, a stranger offering to take care of him.  She'd never given an explanation and he'd never asked, never questioned the arrangement.  She honestly thought he wasn't able to consider it; the bigger picture seemed to elude him.  She was just the person who took care of him.

But now he wants an answer.  She can practically see the wheels turning in his mind, unsteady and halting but still working.

She climbs painfully to her feet, takes the dishes from his hands and puts them aside.  "Davenport," she says, gently taking his hand and guiding him to sit next to her on the couch, "do you…remember anything from before we met?  Anything at all--a face, or a location?  Any sort of…home?"

He blinks.  His gaze grows distant.  She keeps both her hands clasped over his.  A shudder passes through him.

"N-no," he says.  "Nothing.  There's…nothing, and then there's you."

"Nothing at all?"

"Just…"  He swallows.  "I'm Davenport."

She nods.  What can she even tell him?  She'd have to phrase it carefully or else Fisher would just turn her words to static.  "Well, Davenport," she begins, "I've known you for a long time before that day.  Your—your family were all very dear friends of mine."  She watches him for the telltale signs that he's hearing static, a pained wince or a nervous flicker of his ears. 

But he just stares at her, squeezing her fingers.  "I…I had a…?"  He looks away, rubbing at his temple with one fist.  "Why can't I…w-why can't I remember them?"  The sorrow in his voice drags across her heart like claws.  He starts to tremble.

"Don't try to think too hard about it, or you'll hurt yourself.  Davenport, focus on my voice, all right?"

"What h-happened to my--?"  He breaks off, shaking his head, as if trying to shake something loose.  He winces.

"It was a terrible curse," she says, surprised at the lie even as she says it.  She gives his hand a gentle squeeze, trying to keep him anchored.  "Listen, Davenport, if you try to think about them too hard, it will only hurt you."

"Why--w-who could--"  His mouth works but he can't complete the thought.  The wheels are jamming.  He stares at some faraway point, blinking rapidly.

She takes his chin in her hand and turns his face towards her.  Slowly, and with a great deal of effort, his gaze focuses on her.  It's a haunted gaze, full of questions.  She swallows the lump of lead in her throat.  "An evil wizard in a red robe," she says, answering the question he couldn't manage to complete.  It's not technically a lie.  "But don't worry, that wizard is dead.  They can't hurt you any more."  Both of these statements are lies.

"I'm sorry your family is gone," she continues, and this statement is so honest it hurts.  She is so, so sorry.  It was the only way to save them all, the only option she had, but she is still sorry. 

He squeezes his arms tight across his chest, as if he's curling up around the hole in his heart.  He leans against Lucretia, taking in deep shuddering breaths.

She puts an arm gently around his shoulders.  "But we're together," she says, "and we can be a family.  Just you and me and—"  She is about to say "Fisher," but Davenport doesn't know about them.  All Davenport knows is that there's a tank of dark water in the spare room that makes him nervous, so he avoids it.  "—and Star," she finishes.

"Mmm.  Yeah."  He sniffles a little.  There are tears in his eyes, but he wipes them away with a sleeve.  "I think that—I think that w-would be okay." 

She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.  "I love you, Davenport," she says.

He presses himself tightly against her side.  "I love you t-too."


	6. Starblaster Interlude II - Lullaby

The Starblaster is quiet.  Most of the crew has turned in for the night, and Davenport is taking advantage of the calm to pore over a pair of topographical maps he's acquired from the locals. 

The Light is, in theory, nearby.  But the landscape is riddled with crevasses, canyons, and sharp defiles that make narrowing down its location next to impossible.  Not to mention that any travel by foot will be treacherous.  They'll have to stock up well for any expeditions.  And Merle has already left on Parley, leaving them without a dedicated healer.  Davenport will have to give him another talk about that.  In the meantime, maybe he can hire a local healer to accompany them.

The landscape is beautiful, all craquelure and bands of warm, muted roses and oranges in the exposed geological layers.  But it's also a landscape that can turn ankles, crush limbs, and swallow his crew whole if they aren't careful.

He rubs his eyes.  According to the clock on his desk, it's well past midnight, local time.  He should probably sleep soon; he'll be able to tackle this problem better in the clear light of morning.

His ears twitch.  Someone's walking past his door:  a creak of floorboards and the soft, timid shuffling of slippered feet.  Lucretia. 

He gives her a few minutes, then sets aside his work and follows her.

She is, unsurprisingly, curled up on the common room couch, a journal open on her knees.  There are deep shadows under her red-rimmed eyes.  A mug of tea steams gently on the end table next to her.  She doesn't look up when he arrives, literally knee-deep in whatever she's writing.

He clears his throat. 

She looks up, eyes wide and a little guilty.  "Captain..."

He gives her a soft smile, to put her at ease.  "Another sleepless night?" he asks.

She looks down at her journal, nodding. She rubs at her eyes, accidentally smearing a drop of ink across her nose.

He crosses the room and leans over the arm of the couch.  "Lucretia, when was the last time you slept?"

She opens her mouth, but then closes it again.  She still won't meet his eyes.

"Hey," he says, as gently as he can.  "You know the rules.  If you can't remember the last time you slept, it's been too long.  Why don't you put the journal away and go to bed, okay?"

"Can't sleep," she mumbles.  "I tried, but…"  A helpless shrug of her shoulders. 

"Hmm.  What about a sleeping draught?  We have a stash in the Medbay."

She gives him a helpless smile.  "Empty."

Davenport frowns.  Only a month into this cycle, and already out of sleeping potions?  Yet another thing to worry about.  The chronic insomnia suffered by several of his crewmembers is beginning to be a problem.  He'd had his own terrible bouts of it at the beginning of the Mission, but after a few decades of poking and prodding by the others, he'd managed to approach something along the lines of self-care.  But some of his crew have softer hearts than he does, and as their Mission has stretched into decades, the weight of it has begun to wear on them roughly.

Gods, they've been doing this for nearly half a century.

He pushes the thought away, rubbing at his bleary eyes.  "Well.  In the morning we'll look over Merle's notes and see what we can't figure out about making some more.  Taako can transmute any ingredients we don't have."

"Tried that," says Lucretia, her voice flat.  "His handwriting's indecipherable and his potion recipes are spotty at best.  I don't know about you, Captain, but healing potions aren't something I wanna risk messing up."

He pinches the bridge of his nose.  Yet another thing to talk to Merle about.  "All right," he says, thinking hard.  "All right.  Let's try something different."  He climbs up onto the couch next to her.  "Put down the journal, and get yourself comfortable."

Lucretia does so, stretching out her long legs and resting her head on a pillow right next to him.  He pulls a throw blanket down over her, and sets a hand on her shoulder.

He takes a deep breath, pulls a starting note from where it sits lodged next to his heart, and begins to sing a lullaby.

The first few notes come out ragged and rough, but he finds his footing and lets the song spool out of him.  He closes his eyes.  It's been two cycles since the Legato Conservatory was consumed, and he's still surprised at how deeply ingrained inside him are the songs broadcast by the voidfish.  Like they're permanently etched into his soul. 

Lucretia stirs as he finishes the first verse.  "It's lovely," she murmurs.  "Is it from home?"

"Legato, actually," he answers quickly.  It was the song he'd picked out from the blast of broadcasts when they'd first entered the plane.  It had struck him, in that strange and thrilling moment, how soft and unassuming it sounded in the cacophany of triumphant anthems and epic ballads.  Like noticing a whisper at your elbow in the roar of a crowd.  It was gentle, like all lullabies, but there was a quiet hope to it that spoke to something inside him.  It was a song of reassurance, something to be sung on dark and difficult nights.  In that spinning disorientation that always followed the leap between realities, when he was still gripped by the tight, adrenaline-fueled fear that the Hunger was just behind him, that lullaby took hold of him and told him it was going to be okay.

Lucretia stretches her limbs, settles again on the pillow.  "You have a lovely voice, you know," she says with a yawn.  "I don't think I ever told you after the concert, but…you do."

"Thanks.  That's kind of you to say."

"It's true, though."  She tilts her head slightly to look up at him.  "You haven't sung since Legato."

His throat closes.  He can feel a pulse of grief pushing against the inside of his rib cage.  He pushes it back down. 

Legato.  They'd gotten too attached to that world.  They'd been so confident that they knew where the Light was, they allowed themselves to get attached.  And it was all a stupid miscommunication he should have seen a mile away.  He should have noticed that their so-called "Light of Creation" was producing a phenomenon the crew had not seen in 46 other cycles.  He should have noticed that they'd built up an entire civilization around a phenomenon that, in theory, had only shown up a few days prior.  He should have noticed--

But he didn't.  And he got too attached.  And now it's gone. 

Lucretia places a hand on top of his, which he only just now notices are clamped tightly together, white-knuckled.  He blinks, and feels a tear slide down his cheek, to his mortification.  His breath hitches despite himself.  Damn it, he should be the one comforting her!  Not the other way around.

"It's okay," she says softly.  "Maybe you should try singing more.  It might help."

He knows she means that it might help him mourn.  He _knows_ that.  Lucretia mourns every world they lose, and she mourns by remembering, recording, preserving.  But his own grief is a Pandora's Box he's unwilling to touch.  He can't fall apart.  They need him to be strong, to be the _Captain_.

So he does what he's learned to do so well over half a century that he barely notices he's doing it:  he shifts his interpretation of her words a few degrees to one side.  Could his singing help the Mission? 

It might.  Maybe not the opera, per se, but if lullabies could sooth frazzled nerves on long, sleepless nights, what else could he do?  He could weave some bardic healing magic into his singing, which might patch some holes in their team during Merle's long absences.  Some rousing power anthems could get the blood pumping before difficult expeditions; he can talk to Magnus and see if he still remembers some good fight songs from his time coaching the Tesseralia Losers.  He might even teach the crew some sea shanties or rounds with strong rhythms and easy harmonies, to get them in sync again when tensions on the ship run high.  He still has a stash of songbooks from the Conservatory that he can look through for anything that might inspire his crew.

Possibilities open up before him.  Why hadn't he thought of this before?  If he can use his voice to heal and encourage and support his crew, why shouldn't he?

"You know," he says to Lucretia, "I think you're right.  Maybe I will sing more."  His throat still feels a little tight, but shifting his attention back onto his crew has eased it somewhat.

Lucretia gives him a sleepy smile.

He takes a deep breath, pushing down the last of his grief.  He gives Lucretia a gentle squeeze on the shoulder and continues with the lullaby, this time weaving into it a little of the bardic magic he'd learned on Legato.  He slows the tempo, synchronizing the lullaby's gentle rolling rhythm with the sounds of Lucretia's breathing.  He lets the song unspool with easy confidence; without even having thought of it in nearly two cycles, he still knows every note and every word.

He lets the magic peter out with the last few notes.  Lucretia's eyes are closed, her breathing slow and steady.  He sits in silence for a few moments, letting a warm fondness fill him as he regards her peaceful features. 

Very carefully, he slips off the couch and tiptoes out of the common room, extinguishing the last of the lights as he goes.  Back in his berth, he goes through his own pre-sleep prep, relaxing into the familiar routine of it.  He washes his face with warm water, puts on his pajamas (emerald green with gold pinstripes, something he'd picked up when his regulation IPRE pajamas finally wore out), and carefully folds and puts away his uniform jacket.  A few minutes of breathing exercises, then he pulls the crisp sheets over himself and extinguishes the light.

In the darkness, he thinks about music.  He picks out songs from his memory, things he'd learned at Legato or heard on other worlds.  Songs he can dedicate to a Mission repertoire.

Lucretia had asked him if his lullaby was from home.  Well, did he know any lullabies from home?  Music had been a big part of his warren life.  His uncles had a fondness for rowdy drinking songs, and hop-along ditties were a staple of chore time in the tunnels.  He vaguely remembered snippets of a lullaby his mother used to sing, the one about a clever rabbit who lived on the moon--

No, that wasn't his mother.  It was one of his aunts, who sang it for his young cousin Neelie when she couldn't fall asleep.  Or was it Nip she sang it for?  Or--no, it was the twins.  Was it the twins?  When they had that bout of colick?

Wait, which aunt was this?  Aunt Rosalinda or Aunt--

Aunt…

He sits up in the dark, rubbing his face.  His father had two sisters, Rosalinda and…and…

Something with an M? 

He casts back in his memory, tries to picture them all in the warren.  But he hasn't thought about the warren in decades, he's _avoided_ thinking about the warren in decades.  He can't picture the color of the kitchen wallpaper.  He hears his mother's voice, the warm tones as she tells him how proud she is of him, Davenport, "the first gnome captain of the IPRE!"  The delighted whoops and applause of his family gathered around him.  But her face is a blur. 

He can't remember his mother's face.

Davenport has just a split second to grab his pillow and press his face into it before a wave of grief rolls over him and he breaks down, sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TFW you've written so many TAZ fics that they all start slotting into and referencing each other...
> 
> This was the first TAZ fic I ever wrote, and in exploring this idea of Davenport's fading memories of home, I ended up writing "His Mother's Face," which takes place a couple cycles after this one. But it's not necessary to read that fic in order to read this one; they're designed to be self-contained. This is just me exploring my own headcanon for why the Voidfishing worked on him the way it did: not only was he so dedicated to his mission, but he deliberately avoided thinking about his family for so long that his memories of home faded in a way that didn't happen for the rest of the crew.
> 
> On another note, feel free to insert your own lullaby here, but the one I had in mind is "Lullaby for a Stormy Night" by Vienna Teng. There are even a couple of male covers on YouTube that could work as Dav voices ^.^
> 
> Anyway, that's all for this update! Buckle up for the next chapter, y'all, because it's gonna be a doozie!


	7. Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, friends, because this chapter is arguably the heaviest part of this story.
> 
> Content warnings for: animal death, referenced off-screen character death, grief/mourning, internalized ableism, accidental self-injury, nausea, as well as the usual tags for this fic. Please take care of yourselves. I love you all!

It surprises Lucretia, looking up from her notebooks and maps every so often, how quickly the time flies.  Without her being aware of it, months have turned into years and she's fallen into a routine.  Tracking potential rumors of the relics, seeking out people who might join her budding organization, working with Maureen (and now Lucas) in overseeing the construction of the moon base.  She keeps track of her Happy Ending Trio:  Merle relaxing on his beach, Taako building up a sizeable audience, Magnus with his now-fiancee Julia and their nascent revolution. 

The revolution worries her; Magnus has always been willing to throw himself into a fight, and if this is their last cycle then he's not going to get any more resets.  There's nothing Lucretia can do to stop him from where she is.  She can only hope that Julia gives him enough of a reason to stay alive.

She keeps an eye out for Barry.  She misses him.  But her apartment is warded heavily against him, just in case.

She's found no sign of Lup.

Davenport, of course, is always with her.  He seems happy, most days.

 

#

 

She doesn't remember exactly when she finally starts sketching Davenport in her notebooks.  She's so used to keeping her hands moving across the pages, doodling and jotting notes, that it's unconscious more often than not, her pens moving at the volition of something deeper than thought.

She'd avoided sketching him for a long time, unwilling to record images of her Captain in his new and more vulnerable state.  As if sketching him now would somehow betray the old him even more than she already has.  But somewhere over the years, she gets used to the way things are.  This is who she is now, and this is who _he_ is.  The Director and her ward Davenport.

Still, she never sketches him when he's helpless or out of sorts, never as an object of pity.  Rather, she sketches him in his moments of peace, when he's perched on the couch with Star cupped in his hands, listening to her sing.  Or in his moments of lucidity, when he's managing something of a conversation with her, animated and engaged with the world.  She sketches him in the new suit she got him, feet together and hands clasped behind his back, standing proud because he managed to put it on neatly all by himself.  (It could have been a portrait of the Captain, if it weren't for the unrepentant grin spread across his face.)

They're a record of his best moments, when she can tell herself that at least he seems happy. 

She sketches the others, too.  Magnus working in his shop, Taako owning it on stage, Merle relaxing on the beach with his toes in the sand.  It comforts her to look at these images.  It's the life they all deserve.

One day, in a fit of nostalgia, she draws the Captain.  He's asleep in a big four-poster bed straight out of a fairy tale, his features relaxed and serene.  Thorny green tendrils climb the posts, but in a way that's more enchanted than threatening.  The bed drifts in a sea of stars.  His hair is only slightly mussed from sleep.

(That, to her, is the most unrealistic, romanticized detail.  Davenport has notoriously awful bed-head.  Probably why he used to be so particular about it.)

"I hope you're enjoying your nap," she whispers when she's finished.  She lays the tip of one wrinkled finger against the curve of his face.  "Sorry it's taking so long."

She wonders what he'd think of these drawings.  She wonders what the Captain would make of Davenport:  if he'd recognize some core part of himself, long hidden behind walls and buried under hard experience, or if he'd see a stranger.

 

#

 

Star dies late one Spring day.  Natural causes, old age and nothing more.  Lucretia should have seen this coming.  Silver jays have a lifespan of six years, tops, even living indoors with the best of care.

Davenport is inconsolable.  Grief leaves him in a stupor, and he spends most of a full week in bed, only drifting occasionally to the armchair by the living room window to stare out at the sky, his forehead pressed against the glass.  He barely even manages his own name.

At first she wonders if he expects Star to appear again on the windowsill.  But it quickly becomes obvious to her that Davenport is aware that she's dead.  He understands that his beloved bird isn't coming back.   

Of course he understands.  If there's anything the both of them are familiar with, it's loss.

Still, she can try to give him closure.

So, a week after Star's death, she packs up a few of their things and takes Davenport to an inn about half a day's wagon ride outside of Neverwinter.  She takes Star with them, wrapped in a soft handkerchief in a little wooden box. 

The inn is nestled in a peaceful wooded area by the edge of a river.  The river is wide and slow enough here that its surface is calm, and when the sky is clear--as it is tonight--it becomes a mirror, a peacefully-drifting carpet of stars.  The moon is full and hangs like a lamp over their heads as they make their way down to the edge of the water.

Lucretia has folded some fancy, thick paper into a little boat.  She places Star's body inside, along with a little candle which she lights.  She hands the boat to Davenport, and he sets it in the water.  Star drifts slowly away from them, out among her namesake.

"Farewell, Star," she says.  "You were a dear part of our family, a glimmering light in our constellation.  You will be missed." 

Davenport sighs.  "Davenport," he says, his voice thick.  He stares out at the candle burning low over the water.  His mouth opens, but after a moment's hesitation, he shakes his head.  "Davenport . . . davenport."  He cups his hands in front of him, the same way he used to hold her, and presses them over his heart. 

The candle flickers, one more twinkling light among a thousand stars.  He drops his arms to his sides, letting out a long, shaky breath.  She takes his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.  He sniffles, wiping his eyes and nose with a handkerchief.

They stand there for a while in silence.  Lucretia is reminded of the funerals the crew had held early in the century, back when loss still hit them hard and death seemed to matter.  Later on, they became almost numb to it.  It became just another part of their routine.  Remove any important personal effects, bury or dispose of the body if possible, and keep moving. 

She remembers the moment it really struck her how blasé they had all become.  Magnus had rushed into a cave, and had accidentally triggered a rockfall that crushed him instantly.  The rest of them paused, only for a moment, just long enough to assess the situation.

There was no point in a memorial.  He'd be back in a month.  And there was no point in trying to retrieve his body.  She looked at that pile of rocks and thought, with weirdly clinical detachment, _He's jelly under there._

That brief, silent pause was all they gave him, and it was as much a "Well, that happened, now what?" moment as it was a moment of silent tribute.  Even Captain Davenport, who carried each and every one of their deaths as some sort of personal failure on his part, only sighed quietly.

The moment was only broken when Lup said, "Well damn, that's _one_ way of getting out of bathroom cleaning duty."

They'd shared a brief chuckle.  And then they'd moved on.

And now here she is, presiding over a funeral for a dead songbird.  Magnus, at least, would approve.  Magnus never lost sight of the little things. 

He'd have put together a baller pet funeral.

She wonders if she could commission him to carve a silver jay.  Or if it's always just ducks with him, ducks all the way down.

Shit, she misses him.  She misses all of them.

This time, when she starts sniffling, it's Davenport who squeezes her hand in reassurance.

 

#

 

It's like a hole in the air.

Davenport looks up from his sweeping.  The apartment is quiet.  Star used to fill it up with singing, but now she's gone, and there's this…hole where she used to be.  He used to like quiet.  Quiet was peaceful, quiet was calm.  But now it feels like an absence.  Ever since they got back from the river, he's been trying to do things again, trying to distract himself with chores.  But sometimes he looks up and the silence hits him like a blow, and he finds himself crying again.

Homes aren't supposed to be silent. 

The thought bubbles up out of the fog, and lodges in his brain.  Homes are supposed to be full of noise, and silence means something bad has happened.  Silence means your family is gone.  It feels true.

He sniffles a little, wipes his nose.  But he doesn't cry today.  He feels all cried out, like there's no more grief in him to cry with.  Now he's just hollowed-out and tired.  He goes back to sweeping. 

The quiet presses on him.  He sweeps.  Slow, controlled strokes.  He pauses, looks up again. 

He's been sweeping the same corner of the living room for a long time. 

The quiet squeezes his lungs.

He grips the broom handle.  "Aaaaah," he sings.  His voice is weak and raw, but the note pushes the quiet away, fills up the hole a little.  "Da-da-daaaaah," he tries again, a little louder.  It feels familiar, and good. 

He brings the handle close to his face, like he's singing into a microphone.  He closes his eyes and lets the notes flow out of him.  Random notes, no song but just singing.  Filling the air again. 

He hears a soft footfall, and then another note joins his.  A soft, shy note that blends and fits together with his, just right.  He looks up.  Lucretia is standing in the doorway, eyes wide, mouth open.  She just sang along with him, and seems surprised by it.

He leans towards the broom handle, and holds a long note.  She steps in, adds another blending note.  The sound lifts his heart.  Like blue and yellow becoming green, like stars forming a picture in the sky.  He sings a trio of notes and she sings another trio, not the same trio but like an answer to his.  He does it again, and she gives the same response.  He switches it up, sings another progression, longer this time.  She responds in kind.

He looks up at her, breathless, and smiles at her.  She smiles back.

 

#

 

"Davenport, davenport!"  He swings into the living room and sets down a small suitcase in the growing pile, tail swinging in time to the song playing from the music box.  He sings his name along with the melody.  "Daven-davenport, davenport-port-port!"

Lucretia snaps closed another suitcase and smiles.  "You're in a good mood," she says.  "Are you excited for tomorrow?"

He nods, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.  "Davenport!"

Tomorrow's the big day.  He's been waiting for such a long time.  He and Lucretia are moving to their new home on the moon.

"Daa-aavenpoooorrt!"  He finishes the song with a flourish and a grin, wiggling his fingers at her.  She laughs.  He loves it so much when he can get her to laugh.  She's been so busy and distracted lately.  He tries his best for her.

But it's hard not to smile today.  The sun is out, the sky is beautiful, and tomorrow they're going to live on the moon.  The _moon_.   A second moon in the sky, just for them!

The next song starts up.  Impulsively, he takes her by the hand before she can start on another suitcase.  He pulls her into the middle of the living room floor to dance with him. 

"Oh, Davenport, you know I'm getting old," she grouses, but she's smiling all the same.  She lets him lead, stomping his feet and swinging his tail and flinging out his hands, and she gamely follows along.

Lucretia took him, once, to see the new moon being built in a hidden valley.  There were half-completed domes and exposed steel struts and grass growing in a big central space and even a couple of trees.  This morning she unrolled a map of it across their dining table and showed him what it would look like, what would be in each of the domes. 

He doesn't remember the details.  But he's sure he can figure it out with enough reminders.  Lucretia is really good at reminding him about things when he forgets.

He wishes he could be there to see it lift into the sky.

Still--the moon!  He'll get to live on the moon with Lucretia.

It's going to be amazing.

 

#

 

Lucretia's Stone buzzes, and she snatches it and crosses the apartment before tapping the glowing rune.  "This is the Director," she says, keeping her voice quiet but no less authoritative.

"Lucretia," says Maureen.  "What's going on?  I'm still waiting on the go-ahead--"

"Maureen, not so loud," she says.  "Davenport is sleeping."

"Whoops, sorry," Maureen replies, more softly.  There's a pause.  "Lucretia, we can't wait any more.  We're out of time.  If we're gonna have everything in place for the launch tomorrow, we need to do this _now._ "  Her voice is quiet but no less urgent.

Lucretia's fingers tighten on the stone.  She can picture Maureen as if they were in the same room together:  her friend's firm stance, her dark, arched eyebrow, one hand on her hip.  Standing beside Fisher's new tank with the stack of papers Lucretia had prepared for her, detailing everything about the new Bureau of Balance. 

All she has to do is give Maureen the go-ahead, and she'd dump the papers into the tank.  And the Bureau will disappear from this world.  It's a necessary step, but Lucretia has not been able to bring herself to make the call. 

And now she's out of time.  Tomorrow the second moon will rise, and the population of Faerun needs to believe it has always been there.  She can't stall anymore.

She sighs, and crosses the apartment to the bedroom.  She leans against the doorframe.  Davenport is deep asleep, his breathing steady, his features peaceful.  His tail drapes loosely from beneath the sheets, the tip of orange fur almost brushing the floor.

Maureen is right.  She can't stall anymore. 

Not even for him.

"Okay, Maureen," she says, "drop it in."

At first, nothing happens.  There's no outward indication that all around the world, every sign of the Bureau's existence is vanishing.  She takes a deep breath to steady herself.

Davenport stirs.  His brow furrows, as if his dreams have turned suddenly sour.  A low, querulous moan escapes his lips.

She straightens, her heart caught in her throat. 

He rolls over.  The tip of his tail lashes frantically for a moment, and then is still.  His breathing steadies.

She realizes she's been holding her breath.  And she's bitten her lower lip so hard that she can taste blood.  When Davenport doesn't stir again, she forces her body to relax, and retreats to the living room.

Gods, please forgive her.

Because she won't be getting forgiveness from Davenport.  And she certainly won't be getting it from herself.

 

#

 

Davenport wakes up to a soft receding roar of static.  He lays in bed for a long time, the world drifting around him in a thick fog.  Today is a bad day.  He groans, burying his face in his pillow.

Soon he forces himself out of bed and immediately bangs his shin on a suitcase.  He doesn't even stop to wonder why there's a suitcase in the bedroom as he stumbles out to the kitchen for breakfast.

Lucretia looks up from where she's stirring a pot of oatmeal on the stove.  "Good morning, Davenport.  How, uh…how are you feeling today?"

"Davenport," he groans.

There's a big scroll unrolled on the dining table.  He looks at it, and--and he thinks it's a map, maybe, but the lines twist and squirm and he can't lock his gaze on it, he can't think what it is, it won't _stick_ , he can't think--

The room spins and the floor drops out beneath him.  He reaches for the table edge to steady himself, but his flailing hand misses and he lands on his rear end, all the breath leaving his lungs in a soft "Oof!"  The whole world tilts.

"Shit!  Davenport?"  The clatter of a pan, footsteps, the soft hiss of paper being rolled up.  "Shit, sorry about that."  More footsteps.  She's kneeling next to him.  "Davenport, are you okay?  Can you hear me?"

He groans, pressing his hands into his eyes.  His head is fuzzy with static.  The static hasn't been this loud in a long time, even on his bad days.  What's going on?

"Let's get some breakfast into you.  I'm sure you'll feel better with some food.  Can you get up?"

The world is still spinning.  He doesn't even try to get his feet under him.  He holds out his arms, and lets Lucretia lift him into his seat.  He grips the table edge and Lucretia holds him by the shoulders and rubs his back until he steadies. 

She sets a bowl of warm oatmeal in front of him.  She's made a smiley face on the surface with honey.  He mechanically scoops up a couple of mouthfuls. 

"There, there," she says, running a brush through his hair.  "Today's the big day.  We're moving to our new home.  Do you remember?"

He looks around the living room at the stacks of boxes and suitcases.  Right.  They were going on a trip.  Moving to…somewhere.  He can't remember where, though.  Or why they were moving at all.  He tries to grasp it through the fog but it just isn't there.  "Davenport?"  He looks up at Lucretia, but she doesn't give him any more reminders.

He sighs.  Scoops up another mouthful of oatmeal.  Why did it have to be today?  He's gotten so much better at traveling, and sometimes even enjoys it, as long as they don't go anywhere too loud or confusing.  But not today.  Not on a bad day.  He just wants to go back to bed and hide for a while until he falls asleep.  He doesn't want to go anywhere. 

He wishes Star were here.  She always made his bad days seem a little better.  But she's been gone a long time now, and she isn't coming back.

The thought squeezes his heart.  He starts to cry. 

"Oh Davenport, what's wrong?"

He can't even say her name today.  Everything's just fog.  He holds his hands out in front of him instead, cupping them together in the way he used to hold her.  "Davenport," he sobs.

"Oh.  Oh, Davenport, I'm so sorry."  Lucretia pulls him into a hug, and he presses his face into her side.  "I miss her too."  She holds him for a few minutes, making soft shushing noises.  "I know today is going to be hard for you.  But we can't put this off.  It's an important day.  Do you think you can push through this?"

He shakes his head.  "Mmf," he groans into her side.  He just wants to go back to bed.

She sighs.  "I'm sorry about this, too," she says, stepping away from him to grab her staff.  "But it'll be easier on both of us, this way."  She taps it on the ground, a single hard thunk.  _"Sleep."_

The world goes black.

 

#

 

He hates this place.  It's awful and it makes him sick and dizzy and he doesn’t know why.  He doesn't know anything.  He can't focus.  He can't think.  He spends so much time in bed, one bad day after another after another.  He can't think of any words at all, they've all flown away deep into the fog and he doesn't know where they are.  He cries himself to exhaustion every day.  His sorrow feels bottomless but now, now it's followed by a deep rage he didn't even know he was capable of.

He hates this place.  He cries and he weakly beats the walls of his bedroom with his fists but the lady won't take him home.  He's so lost in the fog, he can't even remember her name.  She looks at him like she's about to cry.  Why won't she take him home?  Can't she see this place is awful?

And the static, it's _everywhere._   All the people here speak in static constantly.  He can see the big angular logo but he doesn't know what it means.  They tell him but he can't hear it.  They work for the STATIC.  They're helping find the STATIC to stop the STATIC.  Static everywhere.  He feels hemmed in by it, squeezed down to almost nothing, curled around his name at the bottom of a well of static.  Static ringing in his ears and climbing down his throat and he can't think he can't he can't static static _static STATIC_ \--

He hates this place, and he doesn't even know where he _is_.  He tries to think about it but every time he tries, the floor pitches and rocks beneath his feet and he feels like he's about to throw up.  The lady gives him medicine to help with the headache and the nausea.  But it doesn't stop the static that's flooding his head.  It's not so bad if he stays in his bedroom and doesn't look outside and tries not to think about where he is, but he can't stay in his room forever.  He just wants to go home.

He hates this place.  He hates the people who speak in static, he hates this stupid bracer he can't get off, he hates the lady for bringing him here, he hates himself for being so stupid and broken that he can spend years and years getting better, learning how to do things, learning how to be in the world, only to lose it all again in a day.  Like the world itself became a giant bird that flew away and left him all alone in the fog.

The bracer is a sign that he works here now.  He thinks if he can take it off in front of the lady, she'll understand and take him home.  So he marches to her office, anger lighting his way through the fog, and tries to take it off.  He pulls at it, he bangs it against the side of her desk, he claws at its edges, nails digging into his own skin and by then the lady's disapproving warnings turn to panicked shouts for a cleric but by that point his anger has burned him out like a cinder, and he drops exhausted to the floor.  He thinks he hears someone crying from very far away.  He's not sure if it's him or her.

He hates this place.

But oh, the stars here are beautiful.  He wanders out into the big central grassy area one night, drifting in a daze, not really sure where he's going, and he stops.  And he looks up and up, tilting his head back and letting the dizziness send him sprawling back into the soft, cool grass.  He lets his vision swim up into the spangled dark expanse, diamonds twinkling on an endless field of soft dark blue, and he thinks, _almost home._

A broad-shouldered orc woman in a blue and white uniform stops next to him, peering down into his face.  "You okay, little guy?" she rumbles.

He's fine.  He's fine.  He doesn't feel like smiling, though, so he just gives her a thumbs-up.

"Okay, if you say so," she says, like she doesn't quite believe him.  But she leaves and doesn't bother him again.

He rests the bracer against his forehead.  The skin at each end is still tender from the healing.  The grass is nice and thick.  There are two trees, but they're empty.  There are no birds on the moon.  They've all flown away.  Or maybe they were never here.

 

#

 

He doesn't know what's going on, but he knows it isn't going well.  The lady works all the time now.  She looks like she's aged another twenty years overnight, lines deepening across her face like claw marks.  Whenever he sees her, she's bent over a spread of maps or piles of paperwork, frowning and frustrated.  She barely looks at him anymore. 

People who work here are dying.  They hold funerals often.  He only goes to the first one.  The lady dresses him in a black suit and leads him to a chamber with the dark tank that makes him feel uncomfortable and even more dizzy than usual, only now the tank is so, so much bigger than he remembers.  He stands next to the lady while she makes a long speech.  And between the tank and the crowd and the static and the warm, stuffy room, his head spins and he drops to the floor halfway through, barely clamping down on his nausea so he doesn't get sick all over the lady's shoes.

He doesn't go to any more funerals after that.

 

#

 

Some days are better than others, even if they are all different shades of bad.  Some days he can at least stumble through their little suite of rooms and put a crystal in the music box and sit on the couch for a while.  They have two bedrooms, him and the lady, right next to each other, sharing a common room that's like a miniature version of their old apartment:  couch, armchair, fireplace, a little dining table, and a small kitchen counter with a stove.  No matter how busy the lady gets, she still makes him breakfast.  Rice porridge or bland omelets, whatever he can force down. 

He finds the lady slumped over the dining room table, asleep with her head in her arms. 

He stares at her face for a long time.  She looks so old and fragile.  There are deep smudges under her eyes.  Shadows like thumbprints hollow out her cheeks. 

He reaches to touch her face, but stops himself.  He doesn't want to wake her.  Instead he grabs a throw blanket from the couch and places it over her shoulders.  Then he silently tiptoes back to his room.

Whatever is going on, he knows it can't keep going like this.  He's breaking apart at the seams and so is she.  He doesn't want them to fall apart.  They're all they have.

If there's one thing he's gotten good at, it's learning to work around the things he can’t think about. 

The next morning isn't quite as bad as it could be.  He lays in bed for a while, gathering up what small energy and volition he can manage.  Then he pushes himself out of bed, gets dressed and groomed as well as he can, eats a bowl of porridge the lady left warm on the stove for him, and then heads straight to her office.  Focuses on his feet, doesn't think about where he is.  One step, then another, then another.  That's good.  He can do this.

"Davenport," he says to her.  He holds out his hands.  _Give me a task._  

The lady looks down at him, both pale eyebrows raised.  "Are you, uh, feeling better?"

"Davenport."  He says it with more emphasis, gesturing again.  " _Davenport_."

She looks around her desk, and picks up an envelope.  "All right.  Do you, ah, think you can bring this to Brad in HR for me?  He's the orc with the long ponytail, in the small dome right next to this one."

He takes the envelope and salutes.  It seems like the sort of thing to do around here.  "Davenport!"

She gives him a weak smile.

 

# 

 

The lady is up to something.  He doesn't know what.  She spends more and more time in her private office in the vault, a place she rarely lets him enter.  There's a new, smaller tank of dark water in there, probably taken from the big tank but he doesn't know why and doesn't like to think about it.  In those rare moments they are together, she gives him long, thoughtful looks.  He doesn't know how to interpret them. 

One day, she finally takes him by the hand and leads him to the chamber with the big dark tank.  She opens a spigot and lets some of the dark water flow into a vial.  Her hands are shaking.  She gives the vial to him and tells him to drink.

He's not sure he wants anything from that dark, unnerving tank anywhere near his lips, but there's a note in the lady's voice that makes him nervous, so he drinks.  It has a strange, fishy taste, not bad but not great, either.  "Davenport?" he asks, looking up at her.

The dizziness and nausea evaporate.  He finds his feet under him again.  He knows where he is.  He remembers the map on the table, the plans for a floating moon base, Lucretia--her name is _Lucretia_ \--promising to take him to live in the sky and now he's _here_ , he's at the Bureau and--

A wave of memories rolls over him, squeezing the air from his lungs.  He remembers a war.  An awful, sickening global mess of fire and destruction.  So many people dying, whole villages wiped off the map.  The relics.  The _relics_ did all of this.  The knowledge throbs in his brain, clearer than anything he's ever remembered.

His knees give out and he sinks to the floor.  He thinks Lucretia is calling his name but he can't quite reach her.  This war is rolling through his head like a stormy sea, and he can't shut it out.

A single memory bobs up out of the churning waves, clear and sharp as cut glass.  He's looking down at a landscape far below.  A patchwork of farmland and villages is being mown down by an army of strange clockwork beasts.  _The Oculus did this_ , he knows.  He's leaning out over a railing and yelling at the army, filled with a depth of sorrow and rage that frightens him.  He is heartbroken and angry and he wishes he were strong enough to wipe the whole damned army off the map with a wave of his hand.  He's screaming at these fuckers because he's finally found a place that he can think of as home, and they're burning it all to the fucking ground.

Someone puts their arms around him and holds him.  He's shaking so hard, and crying, and he thinks they're crying too, though he can't see their face.  He lets himself be held until his rage burns out into a cold, exhausted numbness.  He is so, so tired.

"--Davenport?  Davenport!"  Lucretia's voice is a bell tolling through the fog.  "Can you hear me?  Are you okay?"

He's back in the present.  He's on the floor and Lucretia is crouched beside him.  His head feels clearer than it has in…weeks?  Months?  _Years?_

Behind her, floating in the big dark tank, is a jellyfish made of stars.

He gasps, staring at it.  And he realizes, with a shock, that it has always been there, floating in the dark tank in their apartment for years, and he just never _saw_ it.  "Davenport…" he mutters.

Lucretia takes his hand.  He tears himself away from the soothing, spinning galaxies and focuses on her.

"Davenport," she says, her voice rough and barely above a whisper, "how do you, um, feel?"

He blinks, rubs his face.  "Davenport.  I--Davenport." 

A curious mix of disappointment and relief passes over Lucretia's features.  "Do you know where you are?"  

He presses one hand against the cool floor, which has stopped pitching beneath his feet.  "Davenport."  Now that his head's clearer, he can feel words again just outside his awareness.  He takes a deep breath, lets them settle.  "M-moon," he says.  " _Moon_."  He sighs in relief.  It's the first word he's managed in so long. 

Lucretia nods.  "That's right.  We're on the moon base."

He opens his mouth, thinks a bit.  "W-war." 

She nods again.  

He rolls up his sleeve, uncovering the silver bracer with the Bureau's angular logo.  He runs his fingers over its length, remembering.  Lucretia was putting together the Bureau for so long, so they could retrieve the relics and stop the destruction.  He'd been aware of this, distantly, for a long time.  He'd helped Lucretia because he loved her and was happy to help.  But now…now it feels _real_ to him.  It feels like something he ought to be doing, too.

He leans over and puts a hand over hers.  "Davenport help," he says.

 

#

 

Later that night, he's laying in bed and replaying that memory of himself up in the sky, being held while he cried.  He can't see the person's face but he remembers dark skin and pale hair, and he thinks, _Lucretia._

It's a memory of her from the time before he can remember.

The thought makes him dizzy with happiness.  _He can remember Lucretia._

He feels along the edges of the war, hoping to find more memories of her, maybe even memories of his family.  But the static snaps and his thoughts slide away and he wonders what he was thinking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, if you got through all that, I promise the next chapter is much lighter! But I wanted to explore this particular part of Davenport's history because I don't see it touched on often in fanfics, that he was up on the moon with no inoculation for an unknown amount of time, upwards of an entire year. And we know that being up there with no inoculation is unpleasant *at best.* I could only imagine that it must've magnified the struggles he was already dealing with.


	8. Friends

One day, Lucretia brings paper and quill and her box of paints into Davenport's room.  And she paints him words.

Each of his dresser drawers is labeled with its contents in clear script: _Pajamas, Bow Ties, Underclothes._   Next to his mirror, she pins lists of reminders:  _Remember to wash your face.  Remember to button your waistcoat._   _Remember to put on your socks._   She carefully illustrates step-by-step instructions on how to tie a bow tie.  She pins a big, clearly-labeled map of the moon base on one wall next to his desk.    

He sits on the bed and watches as she works.  His eyes are bright and lucid, there's color in his cheeks, and he's smiling.  The sight of him looking so well loosens a knot between her shoulders that's been aching since she first brought him here. 

It had killed her inside to watch him struggle for months in an awful daze, barely able to function because she couldn't inoculate him.  But there hadn't been much choice.  Her only other option would have been to leave him somewhere on the surface where she couldn't keep an eye on him.  And the thought of leaving him in the care of strangers, where she could not protect him, was unthinkable.  Too many potential threats, too many unknowns.  She had to be here, so he had to be here too.

At least he's better, now.  The baby voidfish's redundant redaction had worked, allowing him to be inoculated safely with Fisher's ichor.  She keeps an eye on him all the same, just to make sure there aren't any more unintended side-effects.  The last thing she wants is Davenport suffering any more due to her redactions.

She wonders, not for the first time, what it's like inside his head.  The only thing Davenport could remember before was his name, but now he remembers both his name and a brutal global conflict.  Of all the pieces of his past she could give back to him, it had to be the damned Relic Wars.  And it wasn't like she could give him anything else back, like his childhood or his hobbies.  In theory, Fisher wasn't even suppressing those.  Davenport himself had been the one to let his own past atrophy like a disused muscle, and to tie up his present so deeply with the Mission.  He'd thought such single-minded purpose would be an asset for him. 

The irony is so bitter she could choke on it.

Still…he seems to be holding up well.  If anything, remembering the Relic Wars has energized him, given him back some fraction of his old resolve.  He has a purpose again.

She finishes applying the final label to his dresser, adding a spray of stars as a flourish.  This has been long overdue.  Their bedroom in Neverwinter had been full of reminders for Davenport, but when she first came to the moon, there hadn't been time to do this for him.  The Bureau demanded her constant attention.  And with him bedridden and barely conscious most of the time…well.  It just hadn't been a priority.

"Davenport," he says, pulling her out of her thoughts.

"Yes, that's right," she says.  "Some stars just for you." 

He smiles.

She gives him a weak smile in return, and puts away her paintbrushes.  She can't put this off any longer, can she?  The reduntant redaction worked.  Davenport is proof of that.  And by now it's become painfully obvious that the only people who have a chance at resisting the relic thrall are the seven of them.  Which means, practically speaking, her Happy Ending Trio, who are no longer quite so happy. 

Her various sources have helped her track them down.  It won't take much to pull them together.  Just a nudge, a few seemingly chance connections.  Tugging on strings like the puppetmaster she's become.

Davenport opens the sketchbook that sits on his bedside table and, to her surprise, carefully rips out a page.  He holds it up to her.  It's a picture of the two of them holding hands on the moon.  The sky above them is a scribble of dark blue, marked by a cluster of seven stars. 

Her small smile tightens, threatens to break.  "That's excellent, Davenport."

He beams.  "Davenport!"

He pulls a pin from the box and pins it beside the door, at eye level, so it's the last thing he'll see just before he leaves his room every morning.  The two of them, together and happy.

 

#

 

Davenport likes this place.  Life on the moon is so much easier, now that he knows where he is.  He throws himself into his work cheerfully, eager to do whatever Lucretia asks.  His tasks are simple and easy to remember.  Fetching and delivering, mostly.  He's in charge of the big lead spheres that will be used to help destroy the relics, though those haven't been used yet.  He counts out employee pay from the money vault, puts the coins in little bags and delivers them.  (Numbers make sense to him.  They don't fly away like words do.)  He also brings Lucretia tea and cookies during her long afternoons of work. 

Sometimes she forgets to eat.  So he puts himself in charge of her meals, too.  He'll take care of her, just like she takes care of him.

He discovers a family of birds living in one of the base's two trees.  He's not sure if they've recently moved in, or if they've always been there and he just didn't notice them when he was ill.  But they're here now, and he likes listening to them sing.

He still has his bad days and his sleepless nights, his weird nightmares he's never able to remember but still leave him shaking and frazzled.  When that happens, Lucretia is always there for him, making him chamomile tea, brushing his hair and singing him lullabies till he can fall asleep again.

But mostly it's good.  And the view is incredible.  He never gets tired of it.

Soon they get a new team of Reclaimers.  And they start _winning._   The lead spheres are finally put to use.  He follows his script like clockwork.  Put the relic in, hand the sphere off to the guard, who rolls it away into the chamber and rolls it back.  Later, go into the back corridor with Lucretia and pull the sphere out of the second hidden chamber, and take the relic out again and hand it to her.  Ignore whatever the relic tells him. 

The relics speak to him in his head, which he doesn't really like.  They trip him up, pull at his thoughts till he gets all tangled up inside, till all he can do is focus on them.  Once, a shining stone pulls really hard at him and the world gets foggier than usual, and he thinks for a moment that he can fall right into the dream it's offering him and be happy. 

A world made all of silver would be beautiful, and quiet, and easy to understand.

But no.  He'd miss hearing Lucretia's voice.  He'd miss the sound of birds singing.

 

#

 

Davenport stands behind Lucretia, juggling several scrolls in his arms.  She knocks again on the office doors of Leon, the Bureau's resident artificer. 

The door finally opens.  "Ah, Leon," she says, striding in.  "I have a few scrolls I'd like you to look at.  They arrived yesterday from one of our Seeker teams, and I think we might be able to pull some useful information out of them."

"Ah yes, Director," says Leon, tugging at his beard, glancing at the pile Davenport carries and then at her.  "I'd be happy to look at them tomorrow.  But today's my day off, I'm afraid.  It's been cleared with HR already."

"Oh, well I do hate to interrupt a day off, but this should only take a few minutes of your time."

"I'm afraid I must insist, Director.  You see, it's the Feast of the Great Hearthstone."  He lets the words hang in the air, and gives Davenport a strange look which he doesn't know how to interpret.  When Lucretia says nothing, he adds, "The most important holiday in the Gnomish calendar?  No gnome worth his tail works on Hearthstone Day."  He looks again at Davenport, then back up to Lucretia, eyebrows pinching together.  "Has, um, Davenport not informed you?"

Lucretia's mouth hardens, and her eyes narrow.  Davenport can sense her whole body stiffening.  "Are you making fun of Davenport, Leon?" she asks, her voice like a knife made of ice.  "You are well aware his communication is limited."

Leon now looks alarmed.  He glances between the two of them, clearing his throat.  "Forgive me!  Of course I didn't mean it like that.  I apologize to you both if it came across as insulting.  I merely assumed…well, as your ward, I assumed Davenport had some way of communicating his needs and desires to you.  Some means of, ah, mutual understanding."

It's a relatively good day, good enough that Davenport can read the room.  Lucretia is angry, Leon looks worried, and they're both making him nervous.  He puts a hand on her arm, and nods at Leon.  "Davenport."  Because Leon is right.  He and Lucretia understand each other, even if it's hard sometimes.

Leon gives him a grateful smile.           

Lucretia sighs through her nose.  "Very well.  Your apology is accepted."

"Thank you, Director.  And I swear I will take a look at these first thing tomorrow."  He takes the scrolls from Davenport and sets them on his desk.  "Do you, ah, celebrate Hearthstone Day, Davenport?"

Davenport gives him a blank look.  The words don't mean anything to him.  He looks up at Lucretia.

She clears her throat.  "Ah, Davenport has spent most of his life around, um, not gnomes.  I do not think he's aware of the holiday." 

Both Leon's thick white eyebrows shoot up.  "Ah.  I see.  Well, if you're interested, Davenport, I'd be more than happy to share with you what I know."  Leon smiles, his eyes twinkling in that way they do when he's about to explain an interesting new artifact.  Davenport never understands the things Leon tells Lucretia when he goes off on one of his long-winded explanations.  But he likes the other gnome's enthusiasm, and is impressed by (and maybe a little envious of) his endless streams of fancy words.

Lucretia looks down at him.  "Well, Davenport, what do you think?  Would you like to take the rest of the day off to celebrate, ah, Hearthstone Day with Leon?"

He shrugs.  "Davenport?"  He has no idea what it is, and being left with somebody who is not Lucretia feels strange to him.  But she wouldn't allow it if it were a bad thing, so he supposes he can give it a try.

"Well, then.  I'll leave you to it.  Enjoy your holiday."  Lucretia turns and leaves the room, and he's alone with Leon.

"Well, come along, then!"  Leon waves him past the giant gashapon machine and through a back door, which leads into Leon's personal apartment.

Davenport isn't sure where to look first.  The place is lined with display cases covered in books and strange objects.  Strings of small magical lanterns hang from the ceiling, along with vine garlands decorated with flowers and fruit.  And all the furniture is gnome-sized, from the antique couch by the fireplace to the small dining room table, which sports a platter of fruits and cookies, and a little bowl of magical fire for a centerpiece.

It's only the second room he's ever been in, besides his own bedroom here, where everything is sized for him.  The strange proportions make him feel weirdly tall, and also a little dizzy.

"Well, make yourself at home!" says Leon.  "There's a roast in the oven that should be ready in another hour, and then I've got a mint berry cake, old family recipe, as traditional as you can get!"  He beams in pride.  "I've also got a book around here, somewhere, that has a good summary of the history of this, our most important feast day.  Normally, the warren storyteller would gather us all around and regale the whole clan in story and song.  Of course, I'm no bard, so the book will have to do.  But first, the very first thing is this."  And he picks a bottle of wine off the table.  "No Hearthstone Day is complete without a toast of spiced burrberry wine!"  He pulls a pair of delicate wine flutes from another display cabinet and pours a little for each of them.

Davenport takes one, watching Leon for clues as to what he should do next.

Leon lifts his glass.  "A toast.  To clan, to family, to friends."

Davenport mirrors the gesture, letting the two glasses clink together.  "Davenport."  He takes a drink.  It's a strange, heady mix of sweet and spicy.  Not what he'd usually pick, but he likes it.

"Ah!"  Leon smacks his lips together.  "Excellent vintage.  You know, I had this shipped from Greenhaven just for the occasion.  Well worth the shipping costs.  I recommend taking it slow, the alcohol in this sneaks up on a fellow and we've got a lot of Feast Day to go!"  He tilts his head.  "Do you like it?"

He nods.  "Davenport."  He takes another sip, smaller this time.  He can already feel the warmth spreading through his torso. 

"Excellent!  Now if you'll excuse me a moment, I'll dig out that book.  Make yourself comfortable, though I'd avoid that old brocade wingback in the corner.  It's got a loose spring and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet."  He heads over to the bookshelves, moving stacks of books aside and scanning their spines.

Davenport wanders slowly over to the broad hearth, taking in the room's contents in smaller chunks so he doesn't get too overwhelmed.  He stops by a suit of polished armor, the metal gleaming faintly purple.  The helmet is topped with a shock of curling white feathers.  The breastplate is covered in detailed, geometric etchings.  He trails his fingers over the design, letting himself get a little lost in it. 

"Oh, that old thing?"  Leon has returned, carrying a thick book in his arms.  "It's only a replica.  General Dingley's armor, worn at the Battle of Longhorn Pass.  My Aunt Lilya left it to me in her will; I don't know how she even acquired it, but there it is, taking up space in my living room."

Davenport takes the helmet off the suit and slips it on over his own head.  It actually fits him very well, even if he can't see much through the visor's grate.  He makes a salute, fist against chest, the way he salutes Lucretia.  "Davenport!"

Leon chuckles.  "You like it?"

He takes the helmet off, turns it in his hands.  The gleaming purple metal shimmers and shifts in the firelight.  "Y-yeah," he says.

Leon's eyes widen.  The corner of his mouth lifts in a smile.  "Ah, so you _can_ talk.  I knew it!"

Davenport feels his face grow warm.  Of course he can talk, it's just…really hard.  Most of his days are no-word days.  But the burrberry wine has seeped into him and soothed his nerves, and he feels relaxed, and it's always easier to find words when he's relaxed. 

Leon's looking at him as if he expects Davenport to say more, but what should he say?  How does he talk about this?  Lucretia was always there to explain things to other people for him.  He's never been left alone with another person without her around.  Even when Maureen talked with him, Lucretia was always there.

He's never been on his own like this.  He's never…he's never had a _friend_ before.

What is he supposed to do?

He opens his mouth, hesitates, thinking hard about what he wants to say.  Words gather quietly out of the fog.  He just has to go carefully.  "Yeah," he says, "on good d-days.  But m-most days...aren't good days.  Words don't…words don't _stay_."  He hooks his thumbs together and extends his fingers so his hands look like a bird with wings outstretched.  The bird flutters next to his head and he makes a gesture like it's flying away, leaving him with one hand extended, grasping at air.

Leon gives him a sympathetic look.  "Ah, sorry to hear that.  That must be hard."

He shrugs.  "Davenport is Davenport," he says. 

"Still," says Leon, setting down his book and taking another sip of wine, "I actually feel rather honored to have been given this rare opportunity to have a conversation with you!  I honestly have so many questions.  You know you're considered a bit of a mystery on the base?"

"Davenport?"  He points to his chest. 

"That's right."  Leon sits down in a leather armchair and gestures with his glass.  "The Director's mysterious ward Davenport."  He leans forward eagerly.  "So tell me, where are you from?  What clan line and warren?  I know the Director said you haven't spent much time around other gnomes, but surely you have a home clan somewhere.  Pegged you for a forest gnome, myself." 

Davenport's ears flick.  He stares at Leon, unable to answer.  He knows he has a--had a--he came from _somewhere_ \--Lucretia said so, didn't she?  But the static sits there, in the place he can't reach. 

After a pause, Leon tilts his head.  "I could, ah, get a map if that's easier for you--"

"Don't know," says Davenport.  "Don't know....where."  He shrugs.

"Oh.  I see."  Leon swirls his wine.  He looks disappointed.  "Well, ah, do you...like working here at the Bureau?"

"Yeah!"  That's an easy one.  He likes it here a lot.  "People are nice.  Stars are good."

"Oh, you're a fan of stargazing?"

"Yeah!"  He smiles.  Another easy one.  He mimes looking through the spyglass Lucretia gave him years ago. 

"Ah!  Then sometime I ought to show you my book of antique star maps.  It's quite the rare find."

"Yes, p-please!"  He claps his hands together.  He loves star maps!  He only has the one, but he's sure he'd love to see more of them. 

Leon chuckles, tugging at his beard.  "Then I'll be sure to pull that one out for you sometime."  He takes another sip, and the twinkle is back in his eyes.  "So tell me, Davenport, how did you end up with the Director?  Have you been with her long?"

Davenport thinks about this.  Time has always been slippery for him, days blurring into weeks blurring into whole months gone by, leaving him with only a scattered handful of moments to hold onto.  "Always," he says at last.  It's the best word he can think of for 'as long as I can remember.'  It might as well be always.  "Lucretia was…is…always there."

Leon raises an eyebrow.  He smiles a little.  "So her name is Lucretia?"

Oh no!  He's not supposed to say that.  But he forgot.  He puts a finger to his lips.  "Ssshh!"  He glances around the room, as if somebody else could possibly overhear him.

Leon winks.  "Ah, I see!  Well, don't worry, I'll keep the secret.  It is a very pretty name, though."

"Mm."

"I've always wondered why she kept her name classified.  Probably part of her whole 'mysterious' image."  He takes another sip of the wine.  "She's always struck me as the tough-but-fair sort of boss, but I always suspected she was a bit of a softie behind closed doors.  Considering that she's looking after someone with your, ah…unique challenges." 

Heat floods his cheeks.  His throat tightens.  "N-no," he says, rising to his feet.  "M'not a _burden_."  His own anger surprises him.  He isn't sure what to do with it, so he just glares at Leon, fists clenched, tail lashing behind him. 

Leon is staring at him, opening his mouth to speak, but Davenport holds up a hand.  His words are scattering, and he needs a moment to gather them back and put them in order.  He needs to breathe, he needs to _focus._ "Lu-lucretia takes care of Davenport."  He holds out his other hand.  "S-so Davenport takes care of Lucretia."  He interlaces his fingers.  _"Family."_

Leon chews on his lower lip.  He nods.  "Davenport, I apologize.  I didn't mean to imply…well.  What I said was rude.  Unacceptable, especially to a guest of mine on such a holiday.  I am sorry."  He slips from his armchair and gives him a deep bow, his long beard sweeping the floor.  "Please accept my deepest apologies." 

Davenport blinks.  He rubs his face.  "O-okay," he says.  He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.  His anger leaves with it. 

Leon resumes his seat.  "I suppose, in a way," he says, stroking his beard, "the Director is your clan, and the base is your warren?"

Davenport nods.  "Yeah."  That sounds...that sounds right.

"Well.  I've been prodding you with enough questions."  He sets down his glass and pulls the book onto his lap.  "Make yourself cozy, and I'll relate to you the tale of Namfoodle the Convincing, and how he brought all of Gnomedom together for the biggest party any race has ever thrown!"

 

#

           

By the end of the evening, Davenport still has no idea what they're supposed to be celebrating.  The conversation had left him exhausted, so he spent most of storytime letting Leon's words wash over him in a pleasing stream of sound.  There's something about some gnomes fighting, and then some other gnome convinced them to not fight anymore, and then there was a party that lasted a whole month?  So many party points. 

By the time they've finished with the roast and the cake, the apartment with its gnome-sized proportions have grown on him.  It feels homey now.  And everything is warm and a bit fuzzy at the edges, but that's okay.  The burrberry wine has taken him past the point of 'relaxed enough to talk' and now he's still talking but his words are getting mixed up and slurry and half of them are Davenport or variations of that, dabbinport or daminporp or davinshort and that's okay too.  He puts the general's helmet back on and goose-steps around the room, chest thrust out like he's in a military parade.  He can hear the echo of Leon's laughter through the helmet but he can't see very well through the visor and he hits a wall and falls on his rear end and that's okay too, he just lays on the floor and laughs for a while. 

"All right, General Davenport, at ease!"  Leon slides out of his chair and crosses the room to help him up.  "Bit of a lightweight, aren't you?"

General Davenport.  He likes that idea.  Being in a room where he actually fits the furniture, striding around with authority, he wonders if this is what Lucretia feels like.  Certainly this is what he'd wear if he were the Director.  It's shiny and impressive.  And he doesn't have to be scared if he's wearing armor. 

"D'rector Davimport!" he slurs, as Leon pulls him to his feet.

Leon laughs.  He's red-faced and he sways a little, too.  "Okay, Director Davenport it is!  Why don't I call one of the night patrol to walk you home?  Last thing we need is you falling off the edge of the base."

"S'okay, Davnporp can _fly!_ "  He sticks his arms out, wobbles a little.  "Like a bird.  Star.  Starbird!  Sumthin'--"  A sting of static runs through his head, but he's so loose and numb he barely notices.  "Sumthin' like that."  What were they talking about?  Everything's so fuzzy.

He feels Leon's hands on his shoulders, guiding him to a chair.  The helmet comes off.  "Davnport!" he says, grabbing it from Leon and pulling it close to his chest.  He pets it like a…like a pet.  "Dabinport's, now!"  He laughs.  The poof of feathers is so soft.  He rubs his cheek against it. 

Leon chuckles.  "You like it that much?"  He shrugs a shoulder.  "Take it.  Honestly, it's just taking up space, and you've had your eye on it all evening."

"Davenport?  S'okay?"

"Of course!  Consider it a holiday gift."

A gift?  He needs to give a gift too.  He reaches into the pocket of his waistcoat.  Not much there.  Just some lint, a piece of wrapped hard candy...  

"Oh, you don't have to worry about getting me anything in return!  Your company has been more than enough--"

He pulls out a spare gashapon token.  Must've been an extra from the last time he paid someone.  He presses it into Leon's hands, and puts a finger to his lips.  "Sssshh!" 

Leon blinks.  "Are--are you sure?  Is that yours?"

He winks.  "Ssssshhh!"  Wink wink.

Leon looks like he's working hard to suppress a smile.  "Well, ah… _thank you_ , Davenport _._   This is delightful!  I'll be sure to put this to good use."

Davenport grins. 

The night patrolman is nice enough to help him carry the bundled-up armor back to his room, but Davenport carries the helmet himself, like a trophy.  He's feeling happy and warm and relaxed, and he wonders if this is what happens when he spends time with other people, instead of just being a…a ghost hovering at the edge of their lives.  His warren is just him and Lucretia, but he thinks, maybe, warrens can be bigger? 

He glances at his reflection in the helmet's shining surface.  He wonders if Lucretia would allow him to wear it all the time.  Probably not. 

That's okay.  This armor is special.  He should save it for a special occasion.

          

#

 

Soon he makes other friends on the moon base.

With the orc-woman, Killian, he has a small staple of shared jokes.  "Hey Davenport, who's the best butler on the moon base?"  "Davenport!"  "That's right!  Got it in one, my man!"  Followed by a low-five.  Or, "Hey Davenport, what do you think about my sweet new girlfriend?"  "Davenport!"  "Aww, I bet you just say that about everybody."  Low-five!  She gives him piggy-back rides a few times, tearing across the quad while he hangs onto her shoulders, laughing till tears stream down his cheeks.  Then Lucretia finds out and gives them both a stern admonishment, and that's the end of piggy-back rides.

But they still trade their jokes and their low-fives.  Her big, hearty laughter fills a piece in his heart he didn't know he was missing.  There's something he really likes about strong arms and bear hugs and loud laughter.  It makes him feel safe, protected.

He spends time with Johann in the Voidfish's chambers, listening to his music and watching the stars swirl in the jellyfish's glowing body.  Johann seems to appreciate the audience.  And there's something about the gloomy bard that makes Davenport feel safe being gloomy, too.  He can visit even on his bad days, and sit with his head against the tank's cool glass, taciturn and miserable, while Johann plays a song sad enough for both of them.  And if he cries sometimes, Johann lets him do so in peace.

The cannon guy, Avi, is the second person on the base that he manages to talk to, after Leon.  Avi's easy-going smile and friendly laughter put him at ease.  Word days are still rare, but when they come, Avi gives him the time he needs to find his words without feeling rushed.  Usually it's no more than a "Good morning" or a "How are you?" or a "Thank you!"  But Avi gives him a thumbs-up or a "Way to go, man!" every time.  And he never seems disappointed in the no-word days.  Avi's smile is just as warm and friendly for a "Davenport" as for anything else.

One day he finds the boy Angus reading a book under the shade of one of the lawn's two trees.  It's not a great day for him, and he's a little tired, so he sits down and relaxes against the trunk.  "Davenport?" he asks, tilting his head in Angus's direction and pointing at his own ear.  And Angus, who is incredibly good at reading Davenport's body language, begins to read out loud.  Soon it becomes a regular thing.  Davenport isn't always able to follow the plot--much of the time, other people's words are a soft river of sound flowing in one ear and out the other--but he follows well enough to have opinions.  Sometimes Angus will ask him what he thinks of this or that character, and he'd smile or grimace or make some other appropriate face, which seems to amuse the boy.

Davenport likes the new Reclaimers, too.  He wants to be friends with them.  He feels like he _should_ be friends with them.  Or--have some kind of relationship?  But there's a wall between them that he can't seem to get past.  He feels invisible to them.  He smiles at them, winks at them, hoping they'll _notice him_ , but they never seem to.

But the elf's cookies are delicious, so there's that.

 

#

 

Lucretia thinks, as the jaws of a monstrous wolf close in on her, _This is how I'm going to die._

She's in a dark room, surrounded by monsters, endlessly replicating and dropping from the ceiling.  She's lost Cam, she's weak and bloodied and too old, too old for this.  High above the desperate fray, she hears the laughter of elven twins.  But not the elves she desperately wants to hear.

She's going to die, and the Mission will end with her.  She's failed them all, she's failed, she's failed--

Davenport's smooth, steady voice drifts through the room.  He's singing.  The sound is too soft, too _kind_ for Wonderland.  The monsters fade, and she wakes with a start.

Davenport is sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb.  His eyes are closed, the notes meandering slowly and softly from his lips.  Singing a lullaby for her.

She shifts.  "Davenport?"

He opens his eyes, and regards her in the dim light.  "Davenport?" he asks in return.  Worry is written in the lines of his brow.

Another nightmare.  She sags back into her pillow, exhausted, and squeezes her eyes shut.  Tears roll unbidden down her cheeks.  It's too late, she can't delay the inevitable any longer.

Tomorrow, she will have to send her family into Wonderland.

She'd been putting it off, hoping to prepare them, giving them every advantage she could.  But the clock is ticking.  Just yesterday she thought the grass on the quad seemed a little less green than usual, the clear sky a little more grey.  The Hunger is a day away, two if she's lucky.  But she's learned long ago not to rely on luck.

She wraps her fingers, wrinkled and aching, around Davenport's.  There's so much _kindness_ in his face, and she can't stand it.  She doesn't deserve his kindness. 

"Davenport," she says, and her throat is raw.  She sits up.  "Listen, there's something I need to tell you."

"Davenport?"  He scoots closer to her, puts his other hand on hers.  Ready and willing to do whatever it takes to make her happy. 

"Tomorrow," she says, "the Bureau's work is going to be finished.  For…for better or worse, all of this is going to come to an end."  Her words catch in her throat.  Gods, why could she hold her mask together in front of everyone else, only to fall apart in Davenport's presence?  "Davenport, you…"  She laughs bitterly, to keep from crying.  "You're going to be so angry at me.  And you'll have every right to be."

He tilts his head, his brow furrowing more deeply.  Like he's trying to wrap his head around this idea. 

"And I just…Davenport, no matter what happens, please, just…I want you to know that I love you, and I'm so, so sorry."

He stares at her, his expression a mix of confusion and worry.  And it occurs to her that this is her last night with this Davenport, that tomorrow she'll put up her shield and wake up the Captain and she'll lose both of them:  the strong and steady leader she'd come to respect over the course of a century, and the soft, open-hearted friend she'd come to rely on.

She closes her eyes again and sucks in a deep breath, her throat thick with sorrow and fear.  And Davenport's arms are around her, holding her in place, holding her together for just a little longer, while the stars outside their home vanish one by one.


	9. Starblaster Interlude III - Insight

It's a good cycle, Davenport thinks.  Temperate climate, low population of agrarian villages, a quick and easy Light retrieval within the first month.  Would that all their cycles were so easy.  But he'll take what he can get.

Lup and Barry are spending most of their time in the lab, continuing their research on the Light.  Merle and Lucretia have been taking short outings to study the flora of this plane, Lucretia sketching while Merle gathers samples and cuttings for his propagation experiments.  Magnus sometimes joins them in case they run into any wild animals he can either punch or try to pet.  And Taako, physical resets notwithstanding, has decided to spend yet another cycle getting, in his terms, "fuckin' ripped."

Davenport has decided to spend his time making a star chart.

He's made them before.  For several cycles, in fact.  But this one feels…different.  There's so much going on in the skies on this plane, and the atmosphere is pristine.  There are so many details he can capture, so many phenomena to study and then to etch out on the dark paper.  He's gotten very good at this over the years.  He's not a bragger by nature, but he honestly thinks this is one of the best charts he's ever made.

He checks his notes, sets his ruler and compass, and lays another star in place. 

Multiple pairs of footsteps run past the kitchen door.  It's followed by a stream of laughter, shrieks, and contained explosions of glitter and sparks.   The crew is all home today, and most of them are taking a break, running around the ship in wild abandon.  Probably some kind of game.

But it's quiet at the kitchen table, just him and Lucretia.  She's working on a painting of a bundle of flowers in a vase, mixing blues and purples together to try to capture the exact shade of the petals. 

He checks his notes, lays a second star next to the first.  It's part of the trunk of a constellation the locals call The Lifetree.  He likes that.  It's poetic.

Taako steps into the kitchen doorway, arms akimbo and jacket open to show his rippling abs, which are shiny with some sort of body oil.  A red handkerchief is tied around his neck.  "Hey, nerds," he says in a deep, booming voice, "I'm Magnus Burnsides and I kiss all my muscles before bed every night."

"I do not!" says Magnus.  "I do not sound like that!"

"I'm Magnus Burnsides, and I think dogs should vote!" Taako continues, pumping his fists in the air.

"You're not Magnus Burnsides," Merle says roughly, "because _I'm_ Magnus Burnsides!"  The dwarf hoves into view on a pair of short stilts he'd acquired seven cycles back.  They'd had to put on a play in order to win the Light of Creation at a theater festival.  Merle has also added a red handkerchief around his neck, and he's brushed out his beard to make it look extra thick and frizzy.  A soup pot helmet completes his ensemble.  "I'm a tall human who doesn't look where he's going and trips over poor dwarves, and I'm Magnus Burnsides!"

"Cap'npoooort!" Magnus whines.  "They're making fun of me!"

Davenport regards the scene unfolding before him.  "I dunno, Magnus, they both make really compelling arguments."

"Hey, I can sort this out," says Lup, sliding into view.  Her jacket, too, is open, and below her midriff-baring tank top, she's drawn a six-pack of abs on her stomach in sharpie.  She's wearing thick blacksmith's gloves that make her hands look huge.  "Because I'm Magnus Burnsides and I can solve any problem with my fists!"  She punches one of said fists into the palm of the other.

"Cap'npooort!"

He takes a sip from his special coffee mug, maintaining unbroken eye contact with Magnus.  It's his red mug with the word REALLY?! in big white letters, and he uses it to signal that he is out of this conversation, and the crew can sort out their weird problems among themselves.

Magnus sighs.  The others smack him on the shoulders and they wander off.

Davenport checks his notes and sets down another star.  There's an explosion from the common area, a loud roar of laughter from Lup and a cry of despair from Magnus, and he doesn't even flinch.

He sets down his quill and looks up.  "When did I get so used to all these shenanigans?" he muses.  His gaze wanders to Lup's vulgar cross-stitch samplers that hang on the kitchen walls, next to a photo of the crew all dressed in denim from an elaborate April Fool's joke several cycles ago.  He's still impressed that Taako managed to make a bedazzled denim frame.  "When did I just…accept that my ship was a never-ending circus of chaos?"

Lucretia doesn't look up from her painting.  "Is that a rhetorical question, Captain, or do you want an honest answer?"

He chuckles.  "Hit me with some honesty.  I'm feeling brave today."

Lucretia regards him briefly, then drops her eyes back to the wash of blue-purple.  "It happened when you started loving us for who we are, instead of who you thought we ought to be."

Davenport takes another sip of coffee.  "Hmm.  When did you get so damn insightful?"

"Well, I did start out my career as a biographer."

" _Touché_."

Lup appears in the doorway again, one arm slung around Barry's shoulders.  She has a dark brown eyebrow pencil in one hand, and is using it to draw thick sideburns on the side of Barry's face.  Barry is wearing a shaggy brown wig from the theater cycle.  "Hey Cap," she says, "we'll need an impartial judge for our Magnus Burnsides lookalike contest.  Would you do the honors?"

He sets down his mug, raising both eyebrows.  "I'd be happy to," he says, "but shouldn't that rightly go to Magnus?"

"Nah, he's a contestant, too."

"Why do I have to be a contestant?" Magnus grumbles, appearing behind them.  "I'm already the best at being me!"

"That's the spirit, Magnus," says Davenport.  "With that kind of attitude, you might even be a contender."

"Cap'npooort!"

"Room for one more contestant, Creesh!"  Lup points the pencil at Lucretia.  "You in?"

Lucretia looks at her, and at her painting.  Suddenly she snatches up a pair of white napkins and holds them to the side of her face like big poofy sideburns.  "What do you mean, lookalike?" she demands in a deep, slow, fake bass voice.  She gets to her feet.  "I'm the REAL Mangus Sideburns!"  And she crab-walks to the door with the widest gait she can manage, glowering all the way.

Davenport laughs.  "Okay, okay," he says, "you kids get ready and call me when it's time for the judging."  And he waves them away.  The storm of voices and laughter retreats to the common area.

He carefully rolls up the chart and sets aside his tools.  From his pocket, he pulls out a shining coin which he's been using to record his Captain's Logs.  He'd enchanted it with a special audio illusion, so he could speak into it and have it repeat his voice back to him at a later date.

"Cycle 81, month 4, day thirteen.  About 1600 hours local time.  Spent three hours working on star chart for this cycle.  Excellent progress.  Putting it aside now for…"  He pauses.  "Ah, we'll call it team-building exercises." 

He slips the coin away, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a short, sweet interlude to cleanse your palate!


	10. Captain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning in this chapter for implied panic attacks.
> 
> Hey all, just a heads up that this is a very long chapter! I'd written the first draft months before the San Francisco liveshow happened, and in editing it, I ended up adding about...*checks math* 2,000 words(!!) to account for the events in that episode. But I didn't quite feel that there was a good point at which I could break it into two chapters, without badly breaking the flow. So...yeah. Which also means, if you haven't listened to that episode, I recommend doing so first, otherwise you might be a little lost. Plus, it's a good episode with more Davenport content!

When Davenport drinks the voidfish ichor, his first thought is one of relief.  A pressure had been building in his head, urging him to drink _drink DRINK_ , and now that it's over with, the feeling retreats and he feels okay again.  For a moment, he lets himself drift.  He's dimly aware of Lucretia speaking, something about an old mission involving the relics, but Barry isn't attacking anymore, so--

Barry--wait-- _Barry?!_

What--?

The static in his head is rolling back, the fog evaporating, and he becomes slowly and painfully aware of hundreds of words, _thousands_ of words, all screaming and beating against the inside of his skull like a flock of birds trying to break free.  He opens his mouth to say something, to say _anything_ , to make it _stop please stop_ but all the words get jammed in his throat and he just stands there, mouth gaping, trembling fingers digging into the silver tray in his hands.

The Reclaimers don't see him.  Their attention is fixed on Lucretia.  Only Barry catches his eye, and the look on his face is a silent apology. 

He turns to Lucretia, the one who comforts him, the one who takes care of him when he's hurt--but what he sees instead is a woman so much older than she should be, overlaid on a memory of a shy slip of a young woman who takes notes while he interviews her, who seems to shrivel in on herself when he asks her probing questions, and he doesn't know who he's looking at anymore, and he doesn't know who he is anymore, there's another _him_ in his head--

"I let you keep your names," says Lucretia, "while eradicating any information pertaining to the mission…"

\--and this other him is angry, he's _furious,_ he's terrifying and terrified and _Lucretia how could you--_

"He was impossible to edit around and so, unfortunately, his name was all he kept--"

The tray drops from nerveless fingers.  The sound of it crashing at his feet breaks the words free, and they burst out of his mouth with all the pain-fury-hurt-betrayal in him--"Lucretia, _what have you done?"_

She looks at him, and there is so much sorrow in her face.

But he can't bring himself to feel sorry for her.  Memories thunder through his head in relentless and agonizing waves, bringing him to his knees. 

When Davenport drinks the voidfish ichor, his brain splits open and his heart snaps shut.

 

#

 

Lucretia feels Johann's song hit her all at once, a wave of light and music that lifts her heart.  She looks out the helm's broad windows at the approaching Hunger and thinks, _we can do this._

And there's her captain, standing where he ought to have been standing this whole time:  not hiding behind her, but standing in front, with the wheel firmly in his grip.

He laughs, deftly maneuvering the Starblaster through monstrous waves and tendrils of sticky black opal.  The ship really seems to be dancing with him.  Her sleeping captain, finally awake and himself again.

She misremembered the old fairy tale.  Certainly she could slay the monster and tear a path through the thorns.  But the curse could only truly be lifted after Sleeping Beauty woke up.

 

#

 

After the Day of Story & Song, Captain Davenport is restless.  He doesn't want to be paraded around as a hero, he just wants to help.  He wants to _do something_.  The world is a wreck and he can't ignore his role in that, the part he played in almost burning it down in the first place.  He convinces Lord Sterling to give him a ship so he can make supply runs up and down the coast, delivering vital supplies to wrecked coastal towns and remote island villages.

The sea, he finds, is a good place to heal.  It's the soothing sound of water and the endless open sky above him.  It's the feeling of being in control of his ship, coupled with the exhilarating sense of freedom as his little _Wave Smasher_ skips and plunges through the spray.  Joy bubbles up in his chest and he finds himself laughing louder than he remembers doing in a long time.

He has all his words again.  A whole sky-filling flock of them, and they _stay._   And if, every so often, he has a little trouble finding the one he wants in of the crowd, well…nobody calls attention to it.

His family is supportive of him traveling.  They seem to understand that he needs time and space.  Time enough to heal, space enough to hear himself think. 

Each of them gives him a gift to think of them by while he's out there.  A carved duck from Magnus, a gnome-sized t-shirt from Taako that reads _It's Taako Time!_ , a shitty monstrosity of glued-together shells from Merle ("It's a paperweight!"), a well-crafted astrolabe from Barry, and a brand new captain's hat from Lup, complete with the words _Badass Motherfucker_ embroidered inside the brim where only he can see it.  He decides this is an improvement over the last time she embellished a captain's hat for him, when she'd cross-stitched the words _My Eyes are Down Here_ on the top. 

Lucretia gives him a tube containing his favorite star chart, the one he'd spent a whole cycle crafting.  There's a thin silvery seam where one corner had been torn, and then mended with magic.  "I thought you'd want to have it back," she said.  "Most of the others were lost on the Starblaster, and the other one…"  She trails off, looking away.

He knows the one she's talking about.  Ten years ago, she'd taken one of his smaller charts with them when they'd moved to Neverwinter, so he'd have something to look at that could hold his attention.  After ten years, it's ratty and seamed from all the times it's been unfolded and refolded, and it's barely holding together.  He doesn't want to think about that one.  He doesn't really want to think about those ten years at all. 

He doesn't stay long with Lucretia.  They talk only long enough for him to tell her that he isn't ready to talk to her just yet.  And to ask a single favor.

"You, ah…kept notes about me?" he asks, irritated at how dry and tight his throat feels.  "When I was, you know…"  He has a lot of words he can use here, but his memory of those ten years is so hazy and uncertain that he's not sure which word is correct.  He's not really sure what he was.

Lucretia understands immediately.  "Of course."  And she goes to retrieve a trio of journals all bound in blue leather, painted with white stars. 

He thinks, not without a bit of acidic humor, that she spent ten years learning how to understand what he wanted without him having to say it.

"Well," he says, "take care of yourself, okay?" 

She nods.

 

#

 

It's about six weeks before he brings himself to crack open the journals.  He's finding ways to ground himself.  He meditates daily and he sings and he starts working on a new star chart for this world that's now, truly, his home.  But he still needs to grapple with those ten lost years.  He remembers images, moments that stick out.  But mostly it's just fog, and the things he does remember are all jumbled up, without context or a sense of chronological order.

He once ate so much chocolate cake he got a stomach ache and threw up in a potted plant.  But he doesn't know when that happened.  He thinks there were other people around, he remembers it being noisy and bright.  Was it a party?  Were they at an inn somewhere?  A Bureau function?  Who saw him like that?

These are the questions Lucretia would know the answer to.  But he can't bear to talk to her about them.  So he makes sure he's in a good and steady place, puts on a pot of tea, and cracks open the journals.

The majority of the first book is familiar to him, containting the sparse biographical details Lucretia had collected over the century.  By the end of it, she'd filled three-quarters of the book, making up for his lack of personal life or vocal opinions with insights she'd gathered by watching him.  He is honestly surprised by how much she managed to draw out about him just by observing and interpreting his behavior.  Not because he doubts her skill as a biographer, but because she has managed to reveal things he hadn't even realized were there until she pointed them out. 

A page (with illustrations) dedicated to his hair care routine is accompanied by notes like, "The Captain doesn't like his hair touched by anyone else but him.  It's an important part of the image he projects, and he doesn't seem to like yielding control of his image to others."  And "Today, 35 cycles in, is the first time I've seen Cap'nport's bed head.  Let me tell you, it is impressive.  His hair is a wild flame, shining orange waves sticking out in a hundred directions.  He had to rush out of his bedroom because Lup started a fire in the lab at three in the morning, and he seems just as out of sorts by us seeing him in disarray as he is by the actual fire.  His hair is almost stereotypically gnomish when it's like this.  I wonder if he's self-conscious about this part of himself.  I think it's beautiful, though, and nobody on this ship would respect him any less, no matter how messy his hair was." 

In the corner of the page is a thumbnail sketch of him half-asleep, his hair a wild mess.  Lucretia has painted it in a wash of bright orange.  Next to it is a small note: _Captain, if you ever see this page, please don't be mad that I painted you like this._

He smiles despite himself.  He picks up a quill and writes beneath it, _I think I can forgive you for this one, at least._

He reaches the end of her notes about the Captain.  It's followed by a whole page of "I'm sorry" written over and over again.

The next few pages are a desperate mess, Lucretia's handwriting shaky with panic and fear.  It's a hastily scrawled list of details about his life, things that she thought should have withstood the Redaction.  _Childhood in Easthaven.  Loves to sing.  Engineering/mechanical things.  Cartography.  Enjoys fine red wines.  Likes camping, swimming, long hikes in the mountains._

His throat closes.  The past ten years might have been a haze, but he remembers too clearly how he felt when all these things, his entire life, slipped away from him.  Like drowning inside his own head.  A wave of static dragging him away from shore and out into endless fog.  Casting desperately about for anything, anything to hold onto but finding nothing in the hiss and roar that he could grasp.  Sinking into its murky depths, static filling his eyes, his ears, his throat, the pressure squeezing him down into nothing but a knot of grief and terror and confusion and a name.

He blinks, breathing hard.  He skips to the next section, takes a moment to steady his breathing.  Takes a few sips of tea.  Waits for his hands to stop shaking.

Finally he reaches what he's looking for:  all the notes she took about him after the Redaction.  It is as thorough as he'd expected, and she tries to keep it detached, almost clinical.  There are lists of things that calm or upset him; things he can and can't do, or things he struggles with.  Little signs of progress, like "Today Davenport managed to hold the mug himself and drink without spilling it.  His hands are shaking less."  "Today Davenport remembered to wash his face without being prompted."  And there are the usual canny insights and general statements, like "Very good days are almost invariably followed by bad days.  I think he remembers being able to speak the day before, and is frustrated and morose because now he can't recall the words."

It fills the remainder of the first book, all of the second book and most of the third. 

He pushes through the journals with an ease that surprises himself.  It's the clinical detachment that helps, he thinks.  It's like reading the medical records of a stranger.  It's not _him_ on the page, it's someone else who happens to also be named Davenport.

Then he turns a page and finds a sketch of himself, curled up on a couch, cupping Star in his hands.  He's looking down at her with a serene smile and soft, half-lidded eyes.

Captain Davenport bursts into tears. 

He lets it happen, sobbing loudly and messily in his ship's tiny kitchen.  He lets the pitch and roll of the ship comfort him, and when he's calm again and his breathing steadies, he gets up and paces, trying to unpack the complicated knot of feelings in his chest.

The picture is him, and it's not-him.  It's a stranger, a doppleganger who didn't quite get it right.  And yet it's someone he knows intimately because he _was that person_ for ten years.  He's not sure where the two meet; the borders are messy and confusing and it bothers him that he doesn't know how to separate the two, or even if they can or should be separated so cleanly. 

Even the sketch on the following page doesn't bother him as much.  It's him in a fancy suit, a big goofy grin on his face.  For some reason that doesn't strike him with the same embarrassed confusion as the image of him nestled peacefully on the couch with Star, feet tucked up and tail draped over his toes.

For ten years he was soft and vulnerable and open.  He loved unrepentently, trusted without reserve, and cried without holding back.  He was the sort of person who would hang out a window to rescue a baby bird.  Captain Davenport of the IPRE would never have bothered.  Captain Davenport would have noticed the lame bird, decided that it was just something that happened sometimes, and avoided looking out that window for a while.  Captain Davenport would have let Star die.

He runs his finger over Star's small shape.  His heart squeezes in his chest.  He sighs and closes the book, and takes himself up to the deck.

It's a quiet night.  The smell of salt air is sharp in his nostrils, and it wakes him up from a daze he didn't realize he was in.  He leans over the railing and watches the surface of the water.  It's so still, he can see the stars reflected in it.

He remembers, vaguely, Star's funeral.  With patient steps, he picks through the gray haze of that memory, turning it over and over and finding more as he goes.  The inn by the river.  The little carved box.  The paper boat with the candle, and Star's small silvery body wrapped in silk.  All of it seen through a mournful fog. 

There were so many things he wanted to say, but couldn't find the words for.

He opens his mouth, but closes it again without saying anything.  He doesn't need to say them now.  Not anymore.  He loved Star, of course he loved her.  He misses her.  But that wound in his heart bled freely and healed cleanly a long time ago.  It's a scar, but it's a scar that healed well.

He shakes his head, a self-deprecating chuckle escaping him.  He brushes another tear from his eye.  With all the deaths that hounded his footsteps from the moment the Starblaster left on her maiden flight—uncountable, never-ending deaths, a century and more of death, the death of friends and family and his crew and whole worlds—Star was the first one he had allowed himself to mourn properly.

He cups his hands as he used to when he held her, and presses them against his heart.

 

#

 

He's still mad at Lucretia.  It took him so long, longer than anyone on the crew, to learn how to let down his walls and trust them with his heart.  It took him so long to learn how to let himself be cared for.  And she betrayed them all, betrayed _him_ , in some misguided attempt at self-martyrdom.

And yet.  She took care of him, afterwards.  There were dozens of temples and charitable institutions across Faerun that took care of people like him, people who couldn't take care of themselves.  She could have easily left him in their care and gone off to save the world on her own, free of any burdens or attachments.  But she took care of him instead, spent ten years waiting on him hand and foot, spent ten years looking at him every single day, a walking reminder of what she'd done.  The Starblaster was one of her greatest assets, and she'd put it on ice for his sake.

That decade was one extended trust-fall exercise, with him falling endlessly and helplessly into her arms.  And Lucretia, with the literal weight of the world on her shoulders, caught him every single time without fail.

 

#

 

But maybe, in the end, he's partly to blame for what happened?  It doesn't escape his notice that both Lucretia and Lup were so desperately unhappy that they felt the need to take matters into their own hands, and yet neither of them trusted him enough to come to him with their concerns.  Had he been that callous, that heartless a captain?  Had the calculating detachment he'd cultivated over a century become his real downfall, when even his own crew felt that he would not--could not--care?

And maybe they were right to think that.  He tries to imagine a scenario where Lup came to him first, where Lucretia aired her concerns.  He tries to picture a scenario where he's willing to call the Relic Plan a failure, where he puts his foot down and says "That's enough, this amount of bloodshed isn't worth it."

But he never says that.  Even in his imagination, all he can picture is a stubborn resolution to keep waiting, as if the problem will resolve itself.  All he can see is the Captain Davenport who would turn away from the window forever, if he thought the countless deaths outside would stop the Hunger.

 

#

 

One day he drops a water bucket on his foot.  "Davenport!" he snarls through his teeth.  And then, "Fuck."

 

#

 

He's reluctant to let anyone touch him now.  He's back to being Captain Davenport, who gives firm handshakes and conveys approval with a brisk nod.  He needs space to find his boundaries again.  He keeps his hair meticulous.  He keeps his ship neat and orderly, a place for everything and everything in its place.  He might not wear his IPRE uniform anymore--his IPRE days are behind him, now--but he still wears coats and vests that feel like uniforms, with clean lines and shiny buttons and piping down the legs.

But the sea doesn't live on his schedule, and one day an early-morning storm forces him out onto the deck to batten the hatches and secure the rigging before he has time to brush his hair or make his bed.  When the storm finally passes, he staggers shivering back to his berth and reaches for his sheets to put them in order and begin his day properly.  And then something inside him finally yields, and he pulls the sheets and blankets onto the floor into a nest-like bundle and collapses into their warm comfort, because there's nobody out here that he's trying to impress. 

It's the most relaxing sleep he's had in ages.

Things loosen up around the ship, after that.  He puts his sheets back on the bed but leaves them in a comfortable nest-pile.  The books that had fallen off their shelves in the storm start following him around the ship, picked up and put down in stacks wherever he reads them instead of meticulously sorted by subject matter and author's last name.  He starts picking up souvenirs at every port town he visits, pins maps and photos to the walls, strings shells together into wind-chimes and necklaces.  Cleanliness still comforts him--dirty dishes left on the counter drive him up a wall--but aesceticism finally gives way to a joyful overabundance of color and light and noise.  He doesn't even bother trimming his hair when it gets too long; he just pulls it back into a little ponytail, and when it gets longer still, he finds himself braiding it just for fun.  He tries all sorts of different styles, plays with his look, and stares at himself in the mirror after each attempt.

He's not sure who's looking back anymore.  Not the Captain of the IPRE, nor the wordless assistant, but someone new.  Someone, he realizes, that he's trying to get to know.

 

#

 

The ghost fleet nearly ends him.  It batters his little _Wave Smasher_ , and she may be a quick little thing but he barely manages to keep ahead of the fleet long enough to reach safe harbor.  As she's hoisted out of the water and into dry dock, he stares at the cannonball-sized hole in her hull and realizes he could have died without seeing his family again.  He could have died without clearing the minefield that lay between him and Lucretia.

He's so rattled that he wanders through the streets of the little port town in a daze.  His hands shake from lingering adrenaline and he stops more than once to lean against a building and just breathe. 

In retrospect, deciding to trust Orla is a purely emotional decision.  He's sitting at a bar a few hours later, drinking shitty ale and mentally composing letters to his family, when the whiff of wood shavings drifts over to him.  He glances down the bar and sees Orla a couple of seats over, whittling at a piece of wood in her enormous hands.  She shifts it to work on another side, and he sees the rough form of a parakeet taking shape.  Connections fire in his brain--Magnus, Killian, Star--and he feels his heart cracking open to her, this stranger he's never met before.

She must have sensed his attention, because she looks up suddenly and meets his gaze with her one remaining eye.  "Is there a problem?" she asks, her voice deep and rumbly.

The note of wary defensiveness in her voice sends an anxious flutter through his flock of words, but he holds them together and says, "No, no problem.  Just you reminded me of someone I know.  An old friend."

Her wariness gives way to curiosity.  "Oh?"

He nods at her parakeet.  "He had the same look of concentration when he was whittling.  More into ducks than parakeets, but I--well, I imagine the technique is the same.  I, uh, never tried it myself, really.  I mean, not that I think it's a bad hobby but I just never had time, you see--"  He realizes he's babbling.  "I guess as a hobby, it just seemed…for the birds.  Eh?"  He grins at his pun.

Her eyebrows shoot up.

"I, uh, I'm so sorry for that!" he says in a rush.  "That was--that was a really bad joke—"

She laughs.  "An awful pun, to be sure!  But isn't it the way?  The worse a pun is, the harder we laugh."  She thrusts out a huge hand.  "Name's Orla."

He takes the offered hand.  "The name's, uh, Davenport.  Captain Davenport."

She pauses, and he can see the wheels turning in her brain.  "From the Story?" she asks.

"Yeah, that's--uh, that's me."

"Hmm.  You're a lot shorter than I imagined."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

 

#

 

Taako, Magnus and Merle answer his call for help.  And the moment they show up, he wishes he hadn't deceived them.  They deserve better from him.  Telling them they were just going treasure hunting--what was he thinking?  But it's so nice to be in their presence that the truth gets lodged in his throat, so he only nods and leads them to his ship and introduces them to Orla.

When they're well out on the water, he makes tentative inquiries into their lives, uncertain how to step back into a place that used to be so comfortable.  Magnus says he plans to fund a dog school with the treasure he's going to get, and Davenport's heart sinks in his chest.  He wants to call the whole thing off right then, apologize for wasting their time when they all have so much better things to be doing than hanging out with a sad and lonely gnome who can't even bring himself to be honest with his family. 

He wants to be angry at Merle about the whole bait shop suggestion.  He knows it was meant well, but did Merle honestly think that was something Davenport would enjoy?  Did he really think a bait shop could fill this restless ache in his chest?

But how can he be mad at Merle for not knowing him, when he doesn't even know himself?

Taako comes to him in the middle of the night with some hypochondriac paranoia about scurvy.  Just as he's done countless times before on the Starblaster, whenever he was struck by the slightest discomfort.  And Davenport goes through the routine, checking Taako for symptoms and proclaiming him fine and sending him back to bed.

And after Taako leaves and Davenport returns to bed, he stares at the ceiling, and realizes what Taako had just done.  _You're still wanted,_ he'd said without saying. _I trust you._

 

#

 

For a moment, he feels like the old Captain Davenport again.  Hands steady on the wheel as his disaster of a crew pulls wild shenanigans against first a ghost fleet and then an evil kraken.  He deftly circles around the edge of a giant whirlpool, the reliable ringmaster of an improvized but incredibly effective circus.  Orla fits right in, as the competent woman she is.  He even gets to slice a few tentacles off the kraken himself.  Magnus teases him and he teases back, the corner of his mouth twitching at the look of horror on the fighter's face as he pretends to almost drop the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom into the ocean.

But then Taako rides his kraken into the sunset while Kravitz swoons, and Barry scoops up Lup in a flying hug, and Orla brusquely reminds Davenport that they should probably take the ship back into port for repairs.  And just like that, he realizes it's over.  He's going to sail back to port and his crew will go back to their happy endings and he'll be back to square one, a sad and lonely gnome on a ship built for one, and he still has no idea what the _hell_ he's doing with his life.  The sea could be a new home for him, Orla says, but he doesn't just want a new home.  He wants _himself_ again, the Davenport who knew what he was supposed to be.  And he wants his family, too, he wants a home that's full of noise and laughter and quiet evenings in the kitchen and stupid costume contests.  But it's just like on the moon, there's a wall between them that he can't quite pass.  He wants so many contradictory things, peace and adventure, camaraderie and solitude, and he doesn't know how to reconcile all these things, or even if he can have any of them at all.

He's still rattled by all of this by the time they sail into port.  He puts on a smile for them, makes himself look together and in control, and nods amicably as they tell him not to be a stranger.  He pays Orla her promised wages, more than half expecting her to just walk away like everyone else.  But she hesitates, giving him a long look with her one eye. 

"Davenport," she says, "are yeh…going to be okay?"

He blinks up at her.  "Y-yeah," he says, "I'm good."

She regards him in silence, then says, "…Looks like you've got grit in your eyes."  She raises an eyebrow.

He reaches up and finds tears threatening to spill over.  He turns away, suddenly unwilling to let Orla see him come undone like this.

"Davenport, ye don't…"  She hesitates.  "Look, I don't have a next job lined up yet.  If ye want, I can stay on a bit longer--"

"N-no, that's…that won't be n-nece--necessary, really."  His tongue trips over his words.  He snaps his mouth shut, mortified to hear himself stutter.

Orla sighs, like she doesn't believe him.  "Well, then…if ye change yer mind, or even if ye wanna just share a drink, I'll be at the Crow's Nest.  Fair winds to ye!"  And then he hears the heavy thump of her steps as she walks away.

He stands for a long time in the soft twilight, unsure where to go next.  Eventually he forces his feet to move, but he's going nowhere, staggering along in the dark.  Soon he finds himself in a barbershop, laying down coin for a haircut with a full spa treatment.  His hands are shaking again.  He isn't sure what thought process brought him here.  He tells himself it's because the mix of salt air and sweat has left his hair crusty and stiff and it could use a thorough washing.  He tells himself that this rugged sea hobo lifestyle is fooling nobody and he should just cut it all off and start again.  He settles himself in the chair and takes deep breaths, willing his tail to stop twitching.

The chair is tilted back, and as his braids are undone and warm soapy water is sloshed over his hair, he closes his eyes.  Breathes.  Lets himself drift.

About halfway through the wash, he finds himself so relaxed that he's half asleep and humming under his breath.  He wakes with a start and sits bolt upright, shaking off the barber's hands.

He grips the chair arms, sucking in deep breaths.  Warm, soapy water drips down the back of his neck and under the collar of his shirt.

"Sir?" comes the barber's voice.  "Is everything okay?" 

Davenport stares at himself in the mirror.  He rubs a hand over his face.  "Y-yeah," he says, "I'm fine.  Just nodded off for a minute."  He puts on his cool-headed Captain façade, forces himself to lay back down again.  Pretends his heart isn't battering down his ribcage from the inside.  Carefully, the barber continues washing his hair, thick fingers massaging his scalp.

 _Lucretia._   He remembers this from his lost decade.  Wanting his hair brushed, wanting the feel of her hands on his head.  Leaning into the contact.  Pressing his face into her side and listening to her hum.  Feeling safe and grounded and _loved_.

Gods.  He was so unmoored.  He was so damn _lost._

He'd been desperate for physical contact because he had so little to hold onto.  Lucretia was his anchor in every sense of the word.

And now he's unmoored again, but in a different way.  Hiding behind his walls, scared of taking off his armor.  Skimming over the surface of this world but not _connecting._   He needs time and space, that's true; but he's smart enough to realize he's in danger of overcorrecting.  He doesn't want to do that.  He has his family back, finally.  He can't lose them again.

The barber runs a towel over his hair and pulls out his brush and comb, running them through his wet hair with practiced, even strokes.  Davenport watches this process in the mirror. 

_It's an important part of the image he projects, and he doesn't seem to like yielding control of his image to others._

_I wonder if he's self-conscious about this part of himself.  I think it's beautiful, though, and nobody on this ship would respect him any less, no matter how messy his hair was._

_Day 8 after redaction:  Davenport seems calmer when I brush his hair.  I think the rhythm and the physical contact help steady him.  He doesn't seem to know where he is.  Maybe this makes him feel grounded?_

Lucretia was always so damn insightful.

He closes his eyes, leaning into the pleasant sensation of the comb and brush running over his scalp.

"You know what?  Leave it long," he says to the barber.

Fuck it.  He's going to reclaim this. 

 

#

 

He starts with Taako.  He thinks it will be the least weird with somebody who always took charge of Group Spa Day on the Starblaster.  Taako is happy to see him, and fixes him a big hearty breakfast.  They spend the morning catching up, carefully skipping over the topic of Lucretia.  Neither of them wants to unpack that enormous baggage just yet.

"Hey, Taako," he says during a lull in the conversation, "can I ask you, um…"  He pauses, searching for the word before plucking it up from the flock.  "A favor."

"Sure, Cap.  What's up?"  He points to the loaded omelet that takes up most of Davenport's plate, a lazy smirk on his face.  "Not spicy enough for you?  Because if you put any more hot sauce on, it's gonna obscure all the other wonderful spices I put in there just for you."

He laughs.  "No, no, the omelet's brilliant, as usual."

"Of course it is."

He takes a deep breath.  "This is going to sound weird, but, ah…"

Taako looks up, ears flicking in sudden curiosity.

This is harder than he expected.  But he pushes through.  "Will you…I mean, would you be willing to…to brush my hair?"

Taako looks at him, his face unreadable.

"I'd be happy to brush yours in return," he hurries on.  "Like our old Spa Days.  On the Starblaster."

Taako smiles.  "Of course," he says.  "Hell, for you, I'll even do you one better.  Why don't we make it a day and get ourselves stupidly pampered?"

Davenport grins.  And they do.  There's a spa in town where Taako is a star guest, and they are treated like the legends they are.  Hot baths, manipedis, fancy mixed drinks.  Shopping afterward.  Taako buys him a whole closet full of casual clothes.  And when the afternoon is waning, they head back to the house where a thoroughly-refreshed Davenport sits cross-legged on the thick-piled living room rug, and lets Taako brush his hair. 

He closes his eyes, and lets himself lean into it. 

Behind him, he hears Taako laugh softly.  "Man, Cap'nport, in over a century, I have never seen you this relaxed.  Any more and you'll be a puddle on my rug."

Davenport laughs.  And then he cries. 

"Yeah," says Taako in quiet sympathy.  "Let it out, man."  He puts the brush down and Davenport lets Taako put his arms around him, burying his face in Davenport's shoulder and sniffling.  For a while, they just hold each other.

"Man," says Davenport after a while, his throat raw, "we were so fucked up, weren't we?"

"Yeah."  Taako lets out a long breath.  "But we're survivors."

He mulls over this, then shakes his head.  "I know, I know.  But Taako, we spent a whole century just _surviving_.  I don't want to just survive anymore.  I want to get better.  I want to--fuck, Taako, can I tell you something in confidence?"

"Sure, Cap.  This shit's on lock by default."

Davenport gathers his thoughts.  "Remember when we were up on the Hunger's surface, and the bond engine opened up that portal for us?"

Taako nods.  "Yeah.  Fuckin' weird.  It turned into light and sucked you right in, and then it waited for us to follow."

"Yeah."  Davenport blinks, wiping away a few more tears.  "The engine, it…it spoke to me."

Taako sits up, ears flicking.  "What the hell?"

"I swear it did!  Well--not in words but…It--it pulled me in while the portal was forming, and there was this moment when it felt like, like…"  He reaches for the words he wants, but there are no words to describe what he _felt._   "I was just hanging in this white space, but it wasn't just one big white light.  It was millions and millions of bonds, all together.  And I could feel the engine.  Feel what it was feeling."  His throat tightens.  He grips Taako's arm to steady himself.  He wants to get these next words right.  "It was…a feeling of gratitude, and farewell, and… _permission._   Like it was telling me to move on, to--to put aside the fight and just…live.  And I saw the portal open up, and everyone was fighting.  They were--we were _winning._  And then I was standing outside of Neverwinter."

Taako lets out a soft breath.  "Shit.  The ship really was sentient this whole time!"  And he laughs.

Davenport wipes his eyes again.  He's not sure if sentience is the word or not.  Bonds could do incredible things that seemed to resist understanding.  He doesn't say it out loud, but he likes to think of it as the love of all the bonds the engine had gathered over its long journey, given a shape and form and meaning that was what he needed in that moment.  Like Taako, Magnus and Merle's bonds taking the form of a final powerful blast against John.  Like Lucretia's bonds taking the form of a giant shield, big enough to contain the Hunger itself. 

He was given a home, and permission to be happy in it. 

"So?" asks Taako, pulling him gently out of his thoughts.  "Something like that drops some life-changing advice in your lap, you do what it says.  You need to get out there and live."

"I'm trying.  I _want_ to.  I'm still figuring out what that means, though."  He turns and looks up at Taako.  "But I think it starts with all of you."

Taako smiles and gives him another hug.  "Aww, Cap, that isn't a surprise!  Who doesn't love Taako?"

 

#

 

Later that evening, Barry and Lup come back from reaper duty and join them in the living room.  Davenport makes the offer to them, and Lup literally shrieks with enthusiasm.  They're both game, though Barry takes a rain check on getting his own hair brushed in return.  "Not much left of it, anyway," he says, only a little self-consciously.  Lup plants a kiss on Barry's cheek, and then settles in for a mutual hair-brushing session.

Magnus and Merle are equally up for it, when he visits.  With Merle, though, he almost regrets his offer of reciprocity.  Merle's hair is a _nightmare_ to brush.  It's all knots and tangles and flowers and twigs, and--"Gods, Merle, is that a _pitcher plant?"_

Merle snorts.  "Hey, pitcher plants are valuable and beautiful parts of their ecosystem."

"They're swamp plants, Merle.  They grow in actual mud."  He raises an eyebrow as he works the comb around a particularly trying knot.  "Please don't tell me you've got a problem with flies."

"Okay, I won't."  There's an amused twinkle in Merle's eyes.

"Ugh!  I walked right into that, didn't I?"

"Hey, you know I don't judge."   

"Clearly."

Working through Merle's hair is less a form of relaxation and more an interesting mental puzzle.  How to get around and through the tangles without accidentally yanking the hair from his head becomes a challenging problem that thoroughly absorbs his attention.

"Hey, after this, you up for some cards?" Merle asks.  "I got a new tarot deck.  We can play some Yooker, like old times."

Davenport fumbles the brush and almost drops it, his fingers suddenly nerveless.  The sound of the waves rolling against the sand becomes a hiss of static encroaching at the edge of his awareness.

Merle glances over his shoulder.  "Oh geez, Dav, sorry!  You okay?"

He blinks, rubbing at his ears.  It's just the ocean.  He's at the beach.  He's with Merle, he's with _Merle,_ he _remembers Merle_.  Fisher and Junior are long gone.  Nothing can take him away from himself again.

"P-please," he says, forcing a smile.  "Anything but Yooker, okay?"

"How about Go Fish?"

"Y-yeah.  Yeah.  I can live with that."

Without saying anything else, Merle gets up and takes the brush, and switches places with him.  Davenport shifts quietly into place, and lets Merle brush his hair, his broad dwarven hands steady and gentle.  Davenport breathes in and out, in and out, his breath moving with the waves.

 

#

 

Magnus, he thinks, has changed the most in the decade.  He's finally grown into the good man that Davenport always knew he was capable of becoming.  Davenport honestly enjoys the opportunity to spend time with him, getting to know this new and improved Magnus Burnsides.

He offers his Cap'nport a small dog for his ship.  "You know, so it's not as lonesome."  But Davenport declines as graciously as he can.  Even the best-trained dogs make him a little nervous.  He thinks a cat might be more his speed, and much more suited to life on a small ship, besides.

Magnus isn't offended.  He's an unrepentant dog person, but he loves all critters, and thinks cats get a bad rap--a sentiment with which Davenport heartily agrees.

He tells Magnus about Star.

"It's strange," he says, looking down at Steven's fishball, which he holds cupped in his hands the same way he used to hold her.  He's nestled up in Magnus's lap while the buff human brushes his hair with enthusiasm if not grace.  "I spent a whole century thinking only about protecting the six of you, and that's it.  I had to think big-picture.  I _had_ to, or else I'd just break.  But you…you always had enough room in that big heart of yours for all the little things."  He chuckles.  "It drove me up a wall sometimes, the way you wanted to save everyone and everything that crossed our paths.  But that was my shortcoming, not yours."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Cap'nport," says Magnus.  "You did what you thought was right.  I mean, someone had to keep us on track, and for better or worse, that job fell to you.  You were a great captain."

But not a great _person¸_ Davenport thinks.  "But I was still just as myopic as Lucretia was," he says instead.  He watches Steven swim around happily in his little sphere.  Well, he thinks Steven is happy.  Fish don't emote much.  "I didn't realize how…the little things are also the big things, you know?"  Like the battle on the Day of Story & Song, when all their friends and allies came together to fight, knit by all the bonds they'd forged along the way.  Threads of white light weaving together into a love powerful enough to finally beat back the Hunger.  "The big things are just the little things, all together."

"Wow, that's deep," says Magnus.  Impulsively (how else?), he scoops Davenport into a gentle bear hug.  Davenport nestles into the human's embrace, letting the warmth fill him, letting his whole body relax.

He'd spent so long trying so hard to be bigger than he was.  Big enough to be worthy of his authority.  Big enough to carry the mission to save all of existence.  And in the end, it took him becoming small again in order to learn what it was all for. 

He sees himself in the mantlepiece mirror across the room, tucked into Magnus's huge arms, Steven's ball held in his hands.  He sees himself with hair all wild and messy from Magnus's enthusiastic brushing.  He sees himself as Lucretia once did:  soft and vulnerable and so, so loved. 

And he thinks, _I can be okay with this._

 

#

 

Magnus takes him to a local animal shelter where he knows the staff.  He and Davenport speak for a while with a cheerful halfling woman, who then takes them to a little sitting area full of cats and kittens.  Some of them are lounging, some hunting little balls and stuffed mice.  She points him to a mature ginger tabby named Marmalade.  Eight years old, even-tempered, soft fur, a good lap cat.  Spent several years on a small fishing ship before his person passed away. 

Davenport sits down next to Marmalade.  The cat looks up at him with one good eye; the other is milky and blind.  He leans forward and sniffs at Davenport's offered hand, whiskers alert and curious.  And then he immediately climbs into his lap and settles.

Davenport pets him for a while in silence, stroking the fur on top of Marmalade's head.  Magnus and the halfling woman are speaking on the far side of the room, something about potential helper dogs for Magnus's new dog-training school.  Both of them excited and in their element.

He feels a fresh wave of love for his family.  For everyone.  For this beautiful world and every life in it. 

"Hey, Marmalade," he says softly.  "D-do you, ah, wanna come home with me?"

Marmalade pushes his head into Davenport's hand, and purrs.


	11. Moon, Revisited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for past references to graphic injury

Davenport finds what he's looking for in a pottery shop tucked in a side alley of a bustling port town on the other side of the world.  He doesn't even know what he's looking for, but when he finds it, it tugs at him like a string pulling at his heart.

If he hadn't caught a glimpse of the shop's gold-painted sign glinting in the early afternoon sun, he might have passed it by.  But he's a sucker for a good teacup, and he could use a souvenir from this place.  The local culture and language are unlike anything he's experienced on Faerun so far, and he's just lucky that most of the merchants speak Common or he'd be very lost very quickly.

The shop doesn't disappoint.  There are teacups of all shapes and sizes, along with plates and bowls all hand-painted with pictures of cherry blossoms, rabbits, deer, cranes, and fish.  The craftsmanship is elegant, and some of the glazes create fine color effects he has not seen elsewhere on this world.

He comes to a stop in front of one large display case, blinking in astonishment.  Every item in this case is cracked, the lines of breakage hand-repaired with delicate veins of gold.

"It's called kintsugi," says the saleswoman, appearing at his elbow.  "The traditional art of repairing broken items with gold."  She picks up a white bowl painted with blue cranes, its surface scored with a trio of golden lines like frozen lightning bolts.  "It shows us that history is part of the object," she says, tracing the lines with one finger.  "It is easy to throw away broken pottery, but kintsugi is a way to repair it in a way that brings beauty to the places where it was broken."

Davenport opens his mouth to reply, but shuts it again.  For a moment he's just breathless, his whole body tingling.  He presses a hand against his heart.

On a lower shelf, there is a matched pair of blue teacups, dark as the night sky.  Or they were matched, once.  But they've cracked in different ways, their golden threads marking different paths.

He gestures, still wordless in this moment, and the woman pulls them both out for him to turn over in his hands.  She tells him the history of the set, how they were broken in an earthquake, who had repaired them, whose hands they had passed through before arriving at the shop.  He nods, taking it all in.  He's made his decision.

He has one wrapped up and padded carefully, and shipped to Lucretia at the Bureau of Benevolence.  He writes a brief note telling her what the saleswoman told him, and that he would like to visit sometime in the near future. 

He keeps the other cup for himself.

 

#

 

On paper, Lucretia is busier than ever.  Repairing the world in the Hunger's wake, rebuilding Neverwinter and making it better, overseeing the construction of the library of her dreams--it all takes so much dedicated time.

But there are gaps in her schedule now that were never there before.  Extra time to cook breakfast for a person who isn't there any more.  Quiet moments in the evenings spent reading aloud, or listening to him articulate his day in whatever way he could manage.  She fills up these spots with more work, sometimes.  But more often than not, she finds herself pausing, as if waiting for something.  Waiting for someone.

But it's just her and the silence, now.  And she doesn't know what to do with it.

For the first time in a decade, she is truly alone.

 

#

 

Her family makes sure she isn't alone for long.  Barry and Lup can literally drop in whenever they wish, now, and they often do.  Magnus sticks around a lot at the beginning, before heading back to Raven's Roost; he seems anxious for her sake, unwilling to leave her alone to stew on her sins.  And Merle will shamelessly yank her into Parley just to see how her day is going.  There's more than one awkward conversation, and Taako still gives her a chilly shoulder, but she'd expected a far worse fallout.  She'd braced herself to be ruthlessly cut out of the lives of her entire family.  In some ways, awkward crying sessions that end in weepy hugs is a far more complicated path to navigate.  She'd expected a clean ending.  She hadn't expected the story to keep going.

The idea nags at her for months, in those quiet times when her thoughts get the better of her.  She's going through old Bureau notes one day and finds the watercolor she'd painted, of Captain Davenport asleep in his enchanted bed.  And she realizes that if this had been indeed some sort of fairy tale, then that made her the witch who'd cursed him.  The witch who cursed her entire family. 

Narratively speaking, she shouldn't have come back from destroying the Hunger.

And yet, she had.

Now what?

 

#

 

Lucretia isn't sure what to expect when Davenport shows up.  She feels her spine tightening, as if bracing herself for a strong wind.  It's been over a year and she knows his anger has likely cooled (why would he send her something as fragile and friendly as a teacup, if it hadn't?), but she still half expects him to blow in like a typhoon, finally letting loose on her all the anger she deserves, tearing up her office and breaking anything breakable in sight.

It almost surprises her, how quietly he arrives.

He's looking well.  Healthy and tanned and lucid--gods, the sight of him so _lucid_ feels strange to her.  He carries himself with authority, his whole frame once again radiating a confident power she had come to know well over the course of their century on the Starblaster.  Like he's expanded into his full size again, big enough to command any room he's in.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she says.  Then, "You're looking well."

"Likewise.  Did my gift arrive safely?"

She steps aside and gestures at the desk.  Her new teacup is there, with a pot of tea waiting at the ready.  "It's lovely," she says.  "Thank you."

He gives her a tentative smile.  "Is that green tea I smell?"

"Just the way you like it."  She pauses, disconcerted by how calm he seems.  This can't be going this well.  "Davenport, I just want to say, first, that…if you want to get angry at me, if you… _need_ to get angry at me, you can."

He raises an eyebrow.

"I watched you swallow your anger for a century," she continues, rushing straight for this verbal cliff.  "You always put aside your personal feelings for the sake of the Mission, falling on your own sword rather than turning it on any of us.  But--well.  The Mission's over.  And I'm a--I'm a big girl.  I can take it.  So don't feel the need to hold back."

Davenport closes his eyes, sighing through his nose.  "Lucretia, I…I didn't come here to yell at you."

She takes a deep breath.  "But you deserve the chance--"

"Lucretia.  Can we just talk?"

She stares at him.  "That's it?" she asks, a little stupidly.  It can't be this easy. 

That gets her another raised eyebrow.  "What are you expecting, a full-on wizard duel on the base?" he asks.  He shakes his head, and a soft chuckle escapes him.  "Master of Illusion versus Master of Abjuration?  What would that even look like?  I'd just be pretending to not quite hit you."

He clasps his hands behind his back, and strides to the large windows overlooking the Bureau quad far below.  "Listen," he says more quietly, "this isn't me just letting it all go.  You violated my mind, you took away my whole life, you--you _left me_ like that for ten years, when it was always in your power to fix it.  I'm allowed to be upset about that."  He pauses for a moment, almost but not quite turning his head to look at her.  "And I can't help but think that you saw what your actions led to--what it did to _me_ \--and you let it stand.  But that wasn't enough?"  He stares out the window again, pressing his fingers to the glass.  "Wasn't I enough?"

Lucretia stands perfectly still, unable to speak past the knot in her throat.  She realizes he's not looking at the quad at all, but at his own reflection. 

He draws in a deep breath and looks at her, finally; his gaze is surprisingly soft, and lined with tears.  "But you're still my family, Lucretia," he says, his voice raw.  "I don't want to…to lose you forever.  So, can we just…sit down to some tea and talk about where we go from here?"

She meets his gaze, and for a moment she is overwhelmed by the strange familiarity of his face.  It's her captain standing before her--of course it is--but there is a naked sorrow to him, an unembarrassed plea for connection that she only ever saw during the Decade.  She nods stiffly.  "Of course," she says, her own throat raw and tight.

He crosses over to the desk.  From a pack on his hip, he pulls out a coordinating teacup.  She hadn't realized it had been part of a matched set.  She watches in silence as he pours tea for both of them.

"Look," he says, holding her cup out to her, "if it makes you feel any better, I didn't swallow down my anger this time.  I spent weeks screaming myself hoarse in the middle of the ocean.  I bought cheap breakables just so I could break shit for a while.  And believe me, I broke a lot of shit.  It was actually--well, kind of therapeutic."  He pauses.  "And…and I've been talking to the others.  So I'm at least starting to get it out of my system properly."  He sighs, shaking his head.  "I'm still a little mad, of course.  I'm still _hurt_ by the whole thing.  But my head's on straight again, and a screaming match isn't going to get us anywhere.  So.  Are _you_ ready?"

She closes her eyes and nods.  She takes the cup of tea he's offering.  "I'm ready."

 

#

 

They talk for a long time, sitting on the couch in the inner apartment they once shared.  It's mostly Davenport who talks, and she lets him.  Gods, how she missed hearing him _talk._   He tells her what his life was like during those ten years.  He talks about the two different Lucretias in his head, and the two different Davenports in his head, and how all those disparate images might be reconciled.  Complicated and a little messy, but they've both been through so much for so long that "complicated and messy" is to be expected.

More than a few tears are shed.  But it's okay.  They hold tightly to each other's hands and walk through their sorrow together.  They're family. 

The conversation drifts, eventually, to lighter things.  He tells her about a small, semi-obscure art museum tucked away in the outskirts of Neverwinter that he thinks she'd like.  "It's all very low-key.  Emphasis on pastoral landscapes and domestic scenes."  He pours himself another cup of tea.  "It actually kind of surprised me to discover I really like domestic paintings.  Just tidy, warm scenes of several people together, doing chores or eating or whatever.  I can stare at them for a long time, just trying to figure out the people's relationships and the stories behind their lives."  He blinks, and there's a faraway look to his eyes.  Not the foggy dissociation of his mind-wiped years, but the thoughtful consideration that defined his time aboard the Starblaster.  "I didn't…I didn't know that about myself.  There's just so much I never bothered figuring out."

"Have the journals helped?" she asks, after a moment's hesitation.

There's that tiny smile at the corner of his mouth that she's missed so much.  "Insightful, as always.  You did a wonderful job capturing my bed head in Cycle 35."

"What can I say?  Your unbrushed hair is a marvel of abstract sculptural art," she deadpans.  "Untitled Gnome in Orange, Number 5." 

She offers to lend him a few books of poetry she's come across over the years that she thinks might be to his taste.  "You always did seem drawn to metaphysical poetry," she explains.

He flips through a few pages, nodding to himself.  "What was that thing you said about my tastes, once?"

"'Davenport prefers his wine, his wit, and his poetry the same: dry as toast.'"

He snorts. 

Lucretia's throat tightens.  "I've missed you."

He studies her face for a moment, his expression unreadable.  "I've missed you too," he says.  Then he looks away, reaching into his pack, studiously not meeting her eyes.  "This might seem a bit, um, a bit odd, but…"  He pulls out a hairbrush, turns it over in his hands.  She can see he's blushing.  "W-will you…?  I can, ah, b-brush yours in return?"

She takes the hairbrush in silence.  Davenport slides closer to her on the couch.  His back is rigid, and the tip of his tail twitches in agitation.  This, more than anything, is making him nervous.

Reflexively, she sets a hand on his shoulder to steady him.  He lets out a shaky breath. 

"Are you sure?" she asks.

He nods.  "I'm sure."

She loosens the ties in his hair and runs the brush through it.  It was tightly braided when he walked in, but now it loosens and expands as she works, rolling out into waves of shining orange.  She feels like she's sculpting a flame.  Davenport keeps his breathing steady.  He doesn't quite lean into it as he once did, but he does relax a little.  His tail stops twitching and his ears fall still.  His eyes are closed.  She wonders what he's thinking.  She wonders if he's trying to shift his associations, creating new memories to replace the old, or if he's using this moment to dive into that hazy part of his memories, spelunking into some dark cave in his mind and using the contact as both a jumping-off point and an anchor. 

His breath catches in his throat.  "Okay," he says.  "Okay, I think I'm ready to switch."

She gets her own brush and sits patiently as her captain brushes his hair.  She can tell, even with her back turned to him, that this steadies him.  She can tell in his calmer breathing, in the gentle but confident motions of his hands.  It's so much easier for him to be in command, to be the one taking care of his family. 

Of course she can tell all this.  She's spent over eleven decades of her life learning how to read him like a book.

 

#

 

They go on a walk over the moon base's grounds afterward.  He wants to see what she's been up to.  And he wants to see some old friends.

He passes by Carey and Killian, who are training a new crop of volunteers.  Killian gives him a friendly salute.  "Hey Davenport, who's the greatest captain on the moon base?"

"Me, obviously.  And don't you forget it!" he says with mock severity.  They exchange a low-five. 

Carey tilts her head towards the volunteers.  "What do you think, sir?  They have what it takes to make the B.O.B. proud?"

Davenport looks them over.  "They all look nervous as hell.  But that's a good sign.  It's the ones who look overconfident that you'll have to keep an eye on."

"They're probably nervous because two of the seven Birds are staring at them judgmentally," Lucretia remarks.

" _Touché_."

Avi is running diagnostics on a new cannon system in the hangar.  Davenport waves to him.  "Good afternoon, Avi!"

He looks up, sliding his goggles up to his forehead.  He gives Davenport a thumbs-up and an easy grin.  "Way to go!"

Davenport smirks.  "Ass."

Leon no longer works for the B.O.B.  He's retired back to his warren, citing mental health considerations.  Davenport makes a mental note to send him a postcard and a bottle of wine. 

"The B.O.B. is really hard on gnomes," he remarks to Lucretia.  "That's two for two.  Not exactly a great track record here."

"Yeah, we really, ah, need to work on that.  I'll speak to H.R."

He looks out over the grassy quad.  It's a lovely day; the sky is almost painfully blue, and the family of birds in the trees has grown in number.  There's a third tree now, too, which helps.  A light spring breeze tousles his hair.

"You know, Lucretia," he says, "you're doing good here.  You're doing good work, and you're doing it well."  He looks up at her.  "It…it suits you."

She looks away, as if unwilling to take the compliment.  "Well, I learned from the best."

He chuckles ruefully.  "I was never the best," he says.  "If it ever seems that way, it was…it was because you—all of you—brought out the best in me."  He turns to her suddenly and grabs her hands in his own.  He needs her to hear this.  "Lucretia," he says, "that was the mistake you made—that we _all_ made.  We thought we were alone, that we had to suffer alone.  But we were never alone!  We didn't have to be.  And we don't have to be, now.  We have our family, and we have the Bureau, and—and all of it, Lucretia!"  He waves his hand in the air as if taking in the entire world. 

She laughs, but the sound of it is thick with almost-tears.  She looks out over the quad, following his gesture, looking long at all the familiar Bureau employees hurrying along on their tasks.  Carey pauses in her drilling of the newbies to flash a sharp white grin and a salute in their direction.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out.  "You're right," she says slowly. "I suppose I just wish I'd learned that sooner."

He gives her a rueful smile.  "Better late than never.  For both of us." 

They stand together on the quad, the silence between them familiar, companionable. 

"Hey," he says after a moment, "I'm not sure how much you salvaged out of the Starblaster, but you wouldn't happen to have that karaoke machine of Taako's, would you?"  He rubs one temple with his knuckles, a habit he'd picked up during his Lost Decade.  "I vaguely seem to remember there being at least one Karaoke Night held while I was here."

"You're right, there was," she says.  "You insisted on going, and on sitting up near the front.  You--you loved hearing people sing.  I was worried about the noise and the crowd, but…"

"Yeah, I think I remember this now.  I clapped so hard for every act, no matter how terrible."  He blinks, rubbing his temple again, trying to tease the memory loose.  He remembers Brad Bradson singing some loud power ballad, his well-trained bass voice rolling through the room, just before the memory trails off into gray fog.  "I think I spaced out after a while."

"You did.  I think you were a little overwhelmed.  But you hung on longer than I expected."  She looks at him.  "Did you, ah, want the karaoke machine?"

"Actually," he says, "I was hoping you'd bring it to the party."  He reaches into his pack and pulls out a small envelope.  An invitation addressed to her.

She opens the envelope, and he gives her a moment to look it over.  Her eyes widen just slightly.

"You're throwing a beach party?"

"For everyone, yes.  At first I thought of just having the seven of us, but…warrens can be bigger, right?"  He takes one more look around the quad.  "So I'm inviting the crew and the B.O.B., and any plus-ones you wanna bring.  The whole extended family."  He smiles up at her, the daring smile he always reserved for his just-try-and-stop-me moments.  "We're celebrating my birthday, and we're gonna do it _right_ this time."

 

#

 

It's the most baller party Lucretia has been to in a long time.  Earl Merle, who now has well over two thousand party points, hosts the event at Bottlenose Cove, and the alcohol flows freely from Chesney's.  Magnus and his dogs race over the sand, tossing and catching frisbees respectively, while Taako & Lup preside over the massive grill.  Even reserved Barry is making the rounds, but then he was always a sucker for a good party.  Davenport, naturally, holds pride of place like the commanding soul he is, but there's a warmth and ease to his command now.  He's no longer pretending to be strong.  He just is.

He sits on a big folding chair in the middle of the sand, under the shade of an enormous umbrella, and is telling stories about the Century to a rapt audience.  Small, illustrative illusions flow from his hands:  glowing mushrooms, spindly towers, strange creatures.  Other crew members chime in with additions and commentary, especially Lup, because Davenport still tells stories about the crew as a whole but generally doesn't talk about his own "greatest hits," as she calls them.  It's with her nudging that he tells the story of the time he joined a street race to compete for the Light of Creation.  He'd had to modify a child-sized motorbike on a world without gnomes, beefing it up with an arcane engine, and he tore through the streets like a maniac, laughing the whole time and earning him the street name Hummingbird.  Magnus prods him into telling the story of the time he stole a royal fighter jet from a tyrant prince on a technologically advanced world, and used it to blow a gaping hole in the walls of the royal prison, an act which triggered a successful rebellion.

He's reluctant to tell the leg story.  "People are _eating,_ Lup!  And there are children present!" 

"Well, now we _need_ to hear it," says Orla. 

Beside her, a blushing Ren giggles.  "Oh no, is this gonna be one of those jump-scare stories?"

Orla smiles down at her.  "Don't worry," she says, "I'll protect ya, little lady."

Ren blushes, and Davenport sighs, and Lup tells the story for him, draping herself over the back of his chair.

"…and so here we are, Barry's unconscious and not long for this world, and Davenport's leg is gone from the knee down, and there's Merle standing between them with only one spell slot left, and Lucretia's got the stash of healing potions but she's been separated from us.  And Captain motherfuckin' Davenport--"

"Lup, _please--"_ Davenport's face is buried in his hands.  He's red-faced to the tip of his ears.

"He tells Merle to heal Barry because his own wound is survivable.  And Merle says--Merle, you say it.  I can't do your voice."

Merle chuckles.  In a tone of exaggerated shock and despair, he says, "But Dav, your _leg's_ gone.  It was keeping your blood in!"

Lup snickers.  "So Captain Davenport of the IPRE takes off his belt, looks me straight in the eye, and says, 'Lup, _cauterize me.'_   And he bites down on the belt."

Half of the gathered audience gasps.  Carey's jaw drops open.  Killian reaches over and closes it for her.

"So I look down at him, and I say, 'Captain, this is the most badass thing you've ever done, and I love you.'  And I cast Scorching Ray on his stump."

Davenport looks up from his hands only long enough to roll his eyes.  But even from this distance, where she hangs at the back of the small crowd, Lucretia can see he's smiling.

"…Okay.  That is pretty fuckin' stone-cold badass," says Killian. 

"Still my favorite Davenport moment," says Lup, tousling his hair.  Lucretia notices he doesn't seem to mind. 

"It gave our team maximum odds," he says.  "The more of us survived, the better."

"It was still pretty badass, Cap."

"Okay, yes it was, and I'm amazing.  Is that what you want me to say?"

"Well, it is your birthday, so go nuts!"

He slaps the arms of his beach chair and gets to his feet.  "All right!  Maybe I will.  Where's that karaoke machine?  Lucretia?"

She gets up.  "I put it by the stage.  Let me help get it set it up."

They pull out the cords and connect them to the arcane battery that he and Barry had created, to allow the machine to run on worlds that didn't have outlets.  She finds herself watching his hands, how confidently he moves them.

"Are you holding up well?" she finds herself asking.  She immediately regrets her words.  He's no longer her ward, in need of looking after.

He glances up, regarding her for a long thoughtful minute.  But his expression softens, and he gives her a weak smile.  "Better," he says.  "Neverwinter wasn't rebuilt in a day, you know?"

"No," she says, "I guess not."

"But I'm getting there."  He grabs the mic and turns it on, adjusting the volume when there's a brief buzz of feedback.  "Testing, testing?  Perfect." 

She returns his smile, and slips off the stage, leaving it to him. 

He crouches down by the karaoke machine, thumbing through the selections.  After a moment, he stands, and a power chord blares over the beach.  "Okay, everyone, thank you for coming to my birthday party.  And in case any of you don't know…"  He hooks a thumb towards his chest, and gives his gathered audience his most daring grin as a low, driving beat builds behind him, slowly gathering volume like an incoming tide.  "I'm Captain Davenport, and I'm a professional badass space pilot with a hundred years' experience kicking ass with the best crew this side of the multiverse!  And if anyone or anything threatens this world ever again, I will personally make sure they have a fucking bad time."

Lup, Carey and Killian all whoop and throw their fists in the air, as Davenport launches into a power anthem.  He seems to radiate on the stage.  Lucretia smiles. 

"I didn't know he was a bard, ma'am," Angus whispers beside her.  "I knew he sang opera at the Conservatory, but, well…this isn't opera, is it?"

She suppresses a broader grin.  "Well, we all multiclassed a bit over the century."  That was an understatement.  Of course Captain "Whatever I Can Do for the Mission" Davenport had taken a few more levels of Bard after he'd discovered exactly what it could do.  More than one encounter had turned in their favor when he'd started belting out a raucous fight song from behind them.  And that time he'd found her sleepless in the common room and sung to her had been only the first of many times he'd comforted her and the rest of the crew with lullabies.

His voice always was his greatest asset. 

(Gods, she'd missed his voice.)

It was all for his crew and the Mission, he would have told her.  Had told her.  And he spent decades convincing himself that was true.  But this song, right now?  This song is for him.   

Angus is staring at the stage like Davenport has grown a second head.  Several members of the B.O.B. wear similar expressions of surprise, still rewriting how they understand the brave and dedicated captain who'd spent a year under their noses, unassuming and guileless, who helped save the world and then fled to the sea.  But none of this is news to her.  She's been taking notes for eleven decades, watching and learning, planning the stellar biographies of seven interdimensional heroes.  After all this time, she's learned very well who Davenport is. 

And after eleven decades, he finally knows, too. 

The last power chord rolls over the beach like a riptide, enhanced by a wave of bardic magic.  It's followed by a roar of loud applause and whistles.  From the back of the crowd, Lucretia claps too, as loudly and enthusiastically as she can. 

Davenport looks out over the crowd, briefly meeting her eyes.  She catches a mischievous twinkle just before he extends one arm over the stage, and in the applause Lucretia can hear Lup's delighted "Oh no!  He wouldn't--"

And Davenport drops the mic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooo-boy! That's all for this story, folks! Thank you for sticking around and following me on this journey. My only hope is that I've done these two flawed and struggling characters justice. And though I haven't really been replying directly to comments, I want you all to know I read them all, and I appreciate all your thoughtful responses and kudos. Thanks again for reading!


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